REVIEW: A Company of Swans
Another review having to be written because of the icon!?
A Company of Swans: Eva Ibbotson. Young Picador. 2008 reprint.
I kept thinking this isn't for 'them' - the younger teenagers who might be attracted by the shiny gold lettering and designs on the cover, it's for us (me!), the readers who've grown up on country estates in danger, and even if their rescue is as likely to be instigated by the daughter of the house who stays on for reduced rates when it's been let out to a school as a boy who was banished from the grounds he used to love but made very good across the ocean, we know that it must be saved, it will be saved. Us (me) who can spot a version of the Cinderella story, note it and sink into it at the same time. Us (me) who know that Russians and ballet maniacs behave just so because they've always done so in our ballet books, and this art form is work, work, work to achieve perfection.
This was recced here, there and everywhere, and I see what callmemadam (I think) meant when she said that Rom was a very Heyerish hero. Oh, he was. And I enjoyed the book, even if, sometimes, it was such a fairy tale. For instance, we were told rather too often about Harriet's goodness, and, sometimes, the writing was just a little too luscious, too full of detail, weighing sentences down. Although I did appreciate the vivid description and intelligence at work, wedded to the thrillingest story elements - straight-up romances could learn a lot from the handling of the love story. As for the thrilling aspect, the story could be telegraphed as Escape through ballet! The Amazon! Love! Misunderstandings! Rivals! Rescue!
THe satirical touches I loved, there the tone was always perfect for the material - Ibbotson has an acute eye for human foibles, perhaps Edward and his obessisons were the best example of this for me (Bognor Regis!), and oh, the ballet dancers as nuns scene will stay with me for a long time (plus then she goes and introduces actual nuns into the story for us to compare their sorority with that of the corps). At the same time as the swoons and the thrills, there's a serious point, the book is set in 1912, and yes, the events of the forthcoming century are at the back of the readers' minds - how weird to read of Rom, created in the '80s use the buzz word diversifying! - but what struck me was the position and status of females. Granted, serious, love-starved Harriet's awful family and their abuses are an extreme case, but she really did have no rights. I was furious with them and Isobel towards the end for denying her even the possibility of turning her suffering into art (it was getting late by the time I was finishing the book and it had absorbed me) and at least working, even while I knew the love story was Harriet and Rom's not Harriet and ballet. But she was so powerless (partly because of circumstance and temprament, although, despite Marie-Claire and Simonova and even her mother's genes, Harriet's adventures are instigated by and rescuing comes by way of Dubrov, Henry and Rom). And the dancers' status, barely respectable, barely seen as better than other kinds of dancers (I'm scrambling for a term somewhere between dancing girls and prostitutes) even though they worked really hard, enduring a lot, while many women, chained by respectability, were barred from doing anything but being decorative.
I don't suppose Ibbotson has written any more ballet books - I don't think I've read a story about ballet set in that period, so that was refreshing. Anyway, she used the onstage/offstage shadowing well and gave her Cinderella a realistic chance in that milieu, never forgetting that she was an amateur with potential who was probably too old to make anything of it. I will certainly be getting my hands on more Ibbotsons - I mean, the epilogue was masterfully done, giving us just enough glimpses of the family's life at Stavely to know that Harriet did get her HEA of a home and love.
A note about tagging. I've dubbed this 'historical setting: Edwardian', taking that era in the loose sense of 'up to World War I' (thanks Wikipedia).
A Company of Swans: Eva Ibbotson. Young Picador. 2008 reprint.
I kept thinking this isn't for 'them' - the younger teenagers who might be attracted by the shiny gold lettering and designs on the cover, it's for us (me!), the readers who've grown up on country estates in danger, and even if their rescue is as likely to be instigated by the daughter of the house who stays on for reduced rates when it's been let out to a school as a boy who was banished from the grounds he used to love but made very good across the ocean, we know that it must be saved, it will be saved. Us (me) who can spot a version of the Cinderella story, note it and sink into it at the same time. Us (me) who know that Russians and ballet maniacs behave just so because they've always done so in our ballet books, and this art form is work, work, work to achieve perfection.
This was recced here, there and everywhere, and I see what callmemadam (I think) meant when she said that Rom was a very Heyerish hero. Oh, he was. And I enjoyed the book, even if, sometimes, it was such a fairy tale. For instance, we were told rather too often about Harriet's goodness, and, sometimes, the writing was just a little too luscious, too full of detail, weighing sentences down. Although I did appreciate the vivid description and intelligence at work, wedded to the thrillingest story elements - straight-up romances could learn a lot from the handling of the love story. As for the thrilling aspect, the story could be telegraphed as Escape through ballet! The Amazon! Love! Misunderstandings! Rivals! Rescue!
THe satirical touches I loved, there the tone was always perfect for the material - Ibbotson has an acute eye for human foibles, perhaps Edward and his obessisons were the best example of this for me (Bognor Regis!), and oh, the ballet dancers as nuns scene will stay with me for a long time (plus then she goes and introduces actual nuns into the story for us to compare their sorority with that of the corps). At the same time as the swoons and the thrills, there's a serious point, the book is set in 1912, and yes, the events of the forthcoming century are at the back of the readers' minds - how weird to read of Rom, created in the '80s use the buzz word diversifying! - but what struck me was the position and status of females. Granted, serious, love-starved Harriet's awful family and their abuses are an extreme case, but she really did have no rights. I was furious with them and Isobel towards the end for denying her even the possibility of turning her suffering into art (it was getting late by the time I was finishing the book and it had absorbed me) and at least working, even while I knew the love story was Harriet and Rom's not Harriet and ballet. But she was so powerless (partly because of circumstance and temprament, although, despite Marie-Claire and Simonova and even her mother's genes, Harriet's adventures are instigated by and rescuing comes by way of Dubrov, Henry and Rom). And the dancers' status, barely respectable, barely seen as better than other kinds of dancers (I'm scrambling for a term somewhere between dancing girls and prostitutes) even though they worked really hard, enduring a lot, while many women, chained by respectability, were barred from doing anything but being decorative.
I don't suppose Ibbotson has written any more ballet books - I don't think I've read a story about ballet set in that period, so that was refreshing. Anyway, she used the onstage/offstage shadowing well and gave her Cinderella a realistic chance in that milieu, never forgetting that she was an amateur with potential who was probably too old to make anything of it. I will certainly be getting my hands on more Ibbotsons - I mean, the epilogue was masterfully done, giving us just enough glimpses of the family's life at Stavely to know that Harriet did get her HEA of a home and love.
A note about tagging. I've dubbed this 'historical setting: Edwardian', taking that era in the loose sense of 'up to World War I' (thanks Wikipedia).