What Katy Did/What Katy Did Next
What Katy Did is the first and What Katy Did Next is the third in a series of novels (there are five in all) written by Susan Coolidge. By design, these are are novels advocating proper behavior for young Victorian girls, however they aren't quite as bad as that makes it sound. Katy Carr is the oldest of six siblings who grow up in a small town outside of Boston in the 1860s. Here is Coolidge's description of the family:
There were six of the Carr children--four girls and two boys. Katy, the oldest, was twelve years old; little Phil, the youngest, was four, and the rest fitted in between.
Dr. Carr, their Papa, was a dear, kind, busy man, who was away from home all day, and sometimes all night, too, taking care of sick people. The children hadn't any Mamma. She had died when Phil was a baby, four years before my story began. Katy could remember her pretty well; to the rest she was but a sad, sweet name, spoken on Sunday, and at prayer-times, or when Papa was especially gentle and solemn.
In place of this Mamma, whom they recollected so dimly, there was Aunt Izzie, Papa's sister, who came to take care of them when Mamma went away on that long journey, from which, for so many months, the little ones kept hoping she might return. Aunt Izzie was a small woman, sharp-faced and thin, rather old-looking, and very neat and particular about everything. She meant to be kind to the children, but they puzzled her much, because they were not a bit like herself when she was a child. Aunt Izzie had been a gentle, tidy little thing, who loved to sit as Curly Locks did, sewing long seams in the parlor, and to have her head patted by older people, and be told that she was a good girl; whereas Katy tore her dress every day, hated sewing, and didn't care a button about being called "good," while Clover and Elsie shied off like restless ponies when any one tried to pat their heads. It was very perplexing to Aunt Izzie, and she found it hard to quite forgive the children for being so "unaccountable," and so little like the good boys and girls in Sunday-school memoirs, who were the young people she liked best, and understood most about.
For all of my complaints about Victorian behavior modification novels, I did really enjoy the first half of What Katy Did. Coolidge absolutely nails the dynamics of this family: I have a cousin, the second oldest of four girls, who is exactly like Clover, the second-oldest of the Carr children. Whether or not you identify with the characters (and I identified with Katy quite a bit), you will certainly recognize them. Also, despite the book being about bright, lonely children whose childhoods are less than perfectly happy and who spend nearly every page failing to meet expectations -- their aunt's, their teachers', their neighbors', other childrens', their own -- it does seem like the author has some sympathy for them. I mean, this might be wishful thinking on my part, but even when Coolidge is alluding to what the children should be like, it doesn't actually seem like she is endorsing the Victorian ideals they (Katy especially) are failing to meet. Probably this is because she writes so convincingly about the children as they actually are: the reality feels more real than ideal. I even started to wonder whether Coolidge was covertly attacking the ideal, which seems at times like it exists only to make Katy and the rest miserable.
Then Katy falls out of a swing and can no longer walk and becomes a perfect paragon of Victorian womanhood. ^^; I didn't realize this at the time, but sesame_seed and I worked out later that in every book in this series, a major character WILL get sick, and they WILL be cared for until they make a full recovery, and this WILL be a plot point, and (in four out of five cases) the afflicted character WILL reform as a result of the illness. I'm torn between being amused by Coolidge's cynicism ("how much of a cliché can I make these stories and still get away with it?") and depressed by the gullibility of the readership. Then again, these books were written for 12-year-olds -- if you're looking for high levels of critical thought, maybe you should try a different demographic.
I bet Coolidge enjoyed making jokes at her readers' expense, though. How else do you explain lines like this:
"Hasn't it been a funny evening?" said John; and Dorry replied, "Yes; we never had such good times before Katy was sick, did we?"
AUUUGGHHHHHH.
Anyway, the half of the book where Katy is paralyzed I largely skimmed -- especially the advice from Perfect Cousin Helen, a character I liked at first but whom I rapidly learned to hate once it became clear what her role in all this was going to be. Under Cousin Helen's tutelage, Katy learns to be a sweet, biddable young lady who takes care with her appearance and always has sunny words for everyone -- it is not just that these sections horrified me, but that compared to the independence and individuality and life and joy of the first half of the book, they were BORING.
After learning her lesson, Katy conveniently recovers, and goes in to star in two more books: What Katy Did At School and What Katy Did Next. (The last two books in the series star Clover.) What Katy Did At School is of course a school story; What Katy Did Next is a travel story, as well as being the book I was supposed to read for this round.
WHAT KATY DID NEXT:
Katy befriends a rich widow and her young daughter, and embarks with them on what promises to be a year-long trip across Europe. The plan is to start in England (/London), then head across the Channel to France, and then to travel up from southern Italy and further on to Switzerland and Germany. The tour doesn't quite go according to plan, but this isn't Katy's fault. Overall what I liked the most about the "travel" theme was the focus on just living simply in the countryside -- because I haven't read many books about 19th-century European tourism (does The Grand Tour by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer count?), I hadn't realized how much of this kind of touring involved just living at ease in attractive surroundings, for sometimes several months, as opposed to hitting up the major cities/historic sites and going home. Of course, there were no airplanes back then, and sea travel across the Altantic was a much bigger deal, and even overland travel took a lot longer by carriage -- which is all obvious when you think about it, but still something I guess I hadn't really considered.
The flip side of all this loving detail is that Coolidge is OBSESSED with hotel rooms. ^^; I swear, about half of the story by weight (after you remove Amy's illness, which I'll get to in a minute) is taken up with detailed, loving descriptions of the rooms where Katy, Amy, and Mrs. Ashe are staying. As for the cities, Katy and company are enthusiastic about London, not very impressed with Paris, too uneasy to stay long in Naples, and are having a great time in Rome when Amy suddenly -- yes, you guessed it, catches "Roman fever". SIGH. Actually, in contrast to What Katy Did, whole stretches of this book went by where nothing really terrible happened to anyone, so I was sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop...but I don't know why Coolidge felt the need to pull this particular stunt, unless it was for the sake of the romance subplot (setting Katy and Mrs. Ashe's brother Ned up with each other), as just the minor annoyances of travel/daily living were working perfectly well as sources of tension.
Possibly the worst thing about Amy's illness is that Coolidge is actually, when not discussing hotel rooms, a decent travel writer -- she doesn't spend too long retreading old ground re: well known travel destinations, but does know how to write descriptions of them ("At last the train, steaming down the valley of the Arno, revealed fair Florence sitting among olive-clad hills, with Giotto's beautiful Bell-tower, and the great, many-colored, soft-hued Cathedral, and the square tower of the old Palace, and the quaint bridges over the river, looking exactly as they do in the photographs"), and she isn't afraid to show Katy and company not enjoying themselves ("It is a pity that so much beauty should have been wasted on Mrs. Ashe and Katy, but they were too frightened to half enjoy it"). Possibly she just felt that writing up her travel notes was getting old, in which case I can sort of see where she's coming from, as "travel writing" is not exactly my preferred genre of literature, either.
On a final note, unrelated to any traveling, I enjoyed the author's occasional meta:
Amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef; and to appease this craving, Katy started a sort of ocean serial, called "The History of Violet and Emma," which she meant to make last till they got to Liverpool, but which in reality lasted much longer. It might with equal propriety have been called "The Adventures of two little Girls who didn't have any Adventures," for nothing in particular happened to either Violet or Emma during the whole course of their long-drawn-out history. Amy, however, found them perfectly enchanting, and was never weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again, how they got into scrapes and got out of them, how they made good resolutions and broke them, about their Christmas presents and birthday treats, and what they said and how they felt....
Now, Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the bane of Katy's existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of moisture had been squeezed.
XD Does this remind you of anything?
Recommended by lacewood.
There were six of the Carr children--four girls and two boys. Katy, the oldest, was twelve years old; little Phil, the youngest, was four, and the rest fitted in between.
Dr. Carr, their Papa, was a dear, kind, busy man, who was away from home all day, and sometimes all night, too, taking care of sick people. The children hadn't any Mamma. She had died when Phil was a baby, four years before my story began. Katy could remember her pretty well; to the rest she was but a sad, sweet name, spoken on Sunday, and at prayer-times, or when Papa was especially gentle and solemn.
In place of this Mamma, whom they recollected so dimly, there was Aunt Izzie, Papa's sister, who came to take care of them when Mamma went away on that long journey, from which, for so many months, the little ones kept hoping she might return. Aunt Izzie was a small woman, sharp-faced and thin, rather old-looking, and very neat and particular about everything. She meant to be kind to the children, but they puzzled her much, because they were not a bit like herself when she was a child. Aunt Izzie had been a gentle, tidy little thing, who loved to sit as Curly Locks did, sewing long seams in the parlor, and to have her head patted by older people, and be told that she was a good girl; whereas Katy tore her dress every day, hated sewing, and didn't care a button about being called "good," while Clover and Elsie shied off like restless ponies when any one tried to pat their heads. It was very perplexing to Aunt Izzie, and she found it hard to quite forgive the children for being so "unaccountable," and so little like the good boys and girls in Sunday-school memoirs, who were the young people she liked best, and understood most about.
For all of my complaints about Victorian behavior modification novels, I did really enjoy the first half of What Katy Did. Coolidge absolutely nails the dynamics of this family: I have a cousin, the second oldest of four girls, who is exactly like Clover, the second-oldest of the Carr children. Whether or not you identify with the characters (and I identified with Katy quite a bit), you will certainly recognize them. Also, despite the book being about bright, lonely children whose childhoods are less than perfectly happy and who spend nearly every page failing to meet expectations -- their aunt's, their teachers', their neighbors', other childrens', their own -- it does seem like the author has some sympathy for them. I mean, this might be wishful thinking on my part, but even when Coolidge is alluding to what the children should be like, it doesn't actually seem like she is endorsing the Victorian ideals they (Katy especially) are failing to meet. Probably this is because she writes so convincingly about the children as they actually are: the reality feels more real than ideal. I even started to wonder whether Coolidge was covertly attacking the ideal, which seems at times like it exists only to make Katy and the rest miserable.
Then Katy falls out of a swing and can no longer walk and becomes a perfect paragon of Victorian womanhood. ^^; I didn't realize this at the time, but sesame_seed and I worked out later that in every book in this series, a major character WILL get sick, and they WILL be cared for until they make a full recovery, and this WILL be a plot point, and (in four out of five cases) the afflicted character WILL reform as a result of the illness. I'm torn between being amused by Coolidge's cynicism ("how much of a cliché can I make these stories and still get away with it?") and depressed by the gullibility of the readership. Then again, these books were written for 12-year-olds -- if you're looking for high levels of critical thought, maybe you should try a different demographic.
I bet Coolidge enjoyed making jokes at her readers' expense, though. How else do you explain lines like this:
"Hasn't it been a funny evening?" said John; and Dorry replied, "Yes; we never had such good times before Katy was sick, did we?"
AUUUGGHHHHHH.
Anyway, the half of the book where Katy is paralyzed I largely skimmed -- especially the advice from Perfect Cousin Helen, a character I liked at first but whom I rapidly learned to hate once it became clear what her role in all this was going to be. Under Cousin Helen's tutelage, Katy learns to be a sweet, biddable young lady who takes care with her appearance and always has sunny words for everyone -- it is not just that these sections horrified me, but that compared to the independence and individuality and life and joy of the first half of the book, they were BORING.
After learning her lesson, Katy conveniently recovers, and goes in to star in two more books: What Katy Did At School and What Katy Did Next. (The last two books in the series star Clover.) What Katy Did At School is of course a school story; What Katy Did Next is a travel story, as well as being the book I was supposed to read for this round.
WHAT KATY DID NEXT:
Katy befriends a rich widow and her young daughter, and embarks with them on what promises to be a year-long trip across Europe. The plan is to start in England (/London), then head across the Channel to France, and then to travel up from southern Italy and further on to Switzerland and Germany. The tour doesn't quite go according to plan, but this isn't Katy's fault. Overall what I liked the most about the "travel" theme was the focus on just living simply in the countryside -- because I haven't read many books about 19th-century European tourism (does The Grand Tour by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevemer count?), I hadn't realized how much of this kind of touring involved just living at ease in attractive surroundings, for sometimes several months, as opposed to hitting up the major cities/historic sites and going home. Of course, there were no airplanes back then, and sea travel across the Altantic was a much bigger deal, and even overland travel took a lot longer by carriage -- which is all obvious when you think about it, but still something I guess I hadn't really considered.
The flip side of all this loving detail is that Coolidge is OBSESSED with hotel rooms. ^^; I swear, about half of the story by weight (after you remove Amy's illness, which I'll get to in a minute) is taken up with detailed, loving descriptions of the rooms where Katy, Amy, and Mrs. Ashe are staying. As for the cities, Katy and company are enthusiastic about London, not very impressed with Paris, too uneasy to stay long in Naples, and are having a great time in Rome when Amy suddenly -- yes, you guessed it, catches "Roman fever". SIGH. Actually, in contrast to What Katy Did, whole stretches of this book went by where nothing really terrible happened to anyone, so I was sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop...but I don't know why Coolidge felt the need to pull this particular stunt, unless it was for the sake of the romance subplot (setting Katy and Mrs. Ashe's brother Ned up with each other), as just the minor annoyances of travel/daily living were working perfectly well as sources of tension.
Possibly the worst thing about Amy's illness is that Coolidge is actually, when not discussing hotel rooms, a decent travel writer -- she doesn't spend too long retreading old ground re: well known travel destinations, but does know how to write descriptions of them ("At last the train, steaming down the valley of the Arno, revealed fair Florence sitting among olive-clad hills, with Giotto's beautiful Bell-tower, and the great, many-colored, soft-hued Cathedral, and the square tower of the old Palace, and the quaint bridges over the river, looking exactly as they do in the photographs"), and she isn't afraid to show Katy and company not enjoying themselves ("It is a pity that so much beauty should have been wasted on Mrs. Ashe and Katy, but they were too frightened to half enjoy it"). Possibly she just felt that writing up her travel notes was getting old, in which case I can sort of see where she's coming from, as "travel writing" is not exactly my preferred genre of literature, either.
On a final note, unrelated to any traveling, I enjoyed the author's occasional meta:
Amy had a clamorous appetite for stories as well as for cold beef; and to appease this craving, Katy started a sort of ocean serial, called "The History of Violet and Emma," which she meant to make last till they got to Liverpool, but which in reality lasted much longer. It might with equal propriety have been called "The Adventures of two little Girls who didn't have any Adventures," for nothing in particular happened to either Violet or Emma during the whole course of their long-drawn-out history. Amy, however, found them perfectly enchanting, and was never weary of hearing how they went to school and came home again, how they got into scrapes and got out of them, how they made good resolutions and broke them, about their Christmas presents and birthday treats, and what they said and how they felt....
Now, Violet and Emma, if the truth is to be told, had grown to be the bane of Katy's existence. She had rung the changes on their uneventful adventures, and racked her brains to invent more and more details, till her imagination felt like a dry sponge from which every possible drop of moisture had been squeezed.
XD Does this remind you of anything?
Recommended by lacewood.