REVIEW: Diana the Daring
Diana the Daring: Ethel Talbot. Ward Lock, 1960.
Diana has just left school on a high, a former head girl with a charmed life ahead of her. But following her father's death and the revelation that due to a bank failing, he had nothing to leave her, all her plans for that charmed life are turned on their head. This story is what happens next…
Please note the last punctuation mark: the ellipsis. This is probably the most noteworthy feature of the book, as Talbot uses it remorselessly. I started frowning as I read the first chapter, by the end of the second, I was sighing, and by the end of the book, I was in a foul mood. The abuse of the ellipsis wasn't the only reason for that, but it was a big one. I find it hard to believe that anyone looked over this before it went to print, or if they did, either Talbot was too well known (?) by then to be edited or they had no grasp of grammar, and I say that as part of the generation that was barely taught what a verb is. I like the ellipsis, but I also like to think I know when to use it, and that would be rarely. But it's present in dialogue or reported monologues throughout and it makes Diana sound dithery or constantly hysterical. Most of the times the ellipsis is there, a comma would be much better. For one thing, it would actually be the correct bit of punctuation and, for another, it would mean that the ellipsis was only present at moments of genuine drama. Although this story is a series of extraordinary events, some shading would be nice. Even if this were a radio play adapted into prose narrative form, someone should have done some judicious editing. (May Wynne was guilty of this kind of breathless punctuation thing in Lend a Hand holiday, but it wasn't so bad.)
As I said, there are other problems. I'm not as much of a stickler for the show don't tell rule as I may sometimes seem, but I resent being told the same thing every three pages. There's little development in what we are told too for Talbot seems to have no faith in the reader's ability to retain information about Diana's emotional state and seems determined to spell it out, sometimes contradicting herself, instead of showing her experiences and letting the reader work it out for themselves. There's a lot of fudging in this, apart from very few descriptive scenes, we are just told that Diana does her job, the last of which is nursing, and that part of the tale made me really respect the Cherry Ames and Jean stories. As with everything that happens to her, Diana seems to fall into nursing, receive little or no training, and her probationary nursing seems to consist of walking a lot and making the other nurses tea.
In fact, this serendipitous way of going about things is probably where my disgust with the book comes in. The story is about a pampered public school girl dealing with unexpected poverty. This she does first by running away from a snobbish, unreliable family friend. Fine. She ends up on a park bench and meets two other girls who don't have a home or a job, but have been living hand to mouth for far longer than our runaway heroine and grew up part of the working-if-they're-lucky class. They mutually save each other's bacon with know-how and pocket money. Diana provides the latter.
She then falls into a job as a hostel manager for girls at the behest of a benevolent factory owner, which she later realises was perfectly suited to her past experience as a public school prefect (no grubby work for her). Does she save or set up a bank account? Horrors, no. Following a fire, she is left a jobless convalescent with only what is in her purse. When her kindly benefactor offers to adopt her, she turns up her nose at a return to her life of luxury, which is fair enough up to a point - although why am I meant to have sympathy for her need to work but not for the loneliness that drives his actions? Is it her girlish charm?
Having turned his offer down, she runs away. Again. And guess what, she has no money or particular plans. A chance meeting with an old school friend confirms her in her new prejudices - luxury bad, certain kinds of job good. She remembers (pages and pages after the reader) a doctor who once helped her out. She finds a refuge and a position with Doctor Hewet's mother, while the doctor himself is mysteriously absent. Eventually, she needs to move on and it is suggested that she becomes a nurse. She thinks about it for two seconds and goes for it. Fortunately, help is desperately needed at a fever hospital, so she gets her job and has many uplifted feelings about it, while the writer is scanty on the detail. For instance, there's something of a romance, but it almost happens retroactively, with much more weight is given to encounters that are underwritten in and of themselves as Diana looks back at them. Even considering that this is a book for girls rather than adults, I don't call that tasteful restraint, it's just weak story telling.
So, every time Diana steps out 'daringly' (or idiotically as I would term it) with no plan, no back-up, no precautions, she is serendipitously provided for. Aargh. Her and the author's position on class, work and the earning of a living is actually pretty snobbish and airy fairy - one minute there is no 'type' of girl, for they are all alike, the next we are reminded of Diana's 'public school poise', which makes her unfit for some positions. Diana's daring, highlighted and praised by the author-as-narrator isn't really anything of the sort and not something to be admired or emulated - her decision not to return to the class she was born to is as much youthful stubbornness as the daring it's touted as being. I don't always (often) agree with the politics put forth in girls' own stories, but I can manage to ignore them, but this story was so poorly told that I had little sympathy for the heroine or patience for being hypocritically patronised.
Unfortunately, this was one of the Hay on Wye haul and I bought two other Ethel Talbots. It's been years since I read her books last and I don't remember being so annoyed by anything she wrote before. I am currently reading an Arthur Ransome book to soothe my lacerated nerves.
Diana has just left school on a high, a former head girl with a charmed life ahead of her. But following her father's death and the revelation that due to a bank failing, he had nothing to leave her, all her plans for that charmed life are turned on their head. This story is what happens next…
Please note the last punctuation mark: the ellipsis. This is probably the most noteworthy feature of the book, as Talbot uses it remorselessly. I started frowning as I read the first chapter, by the end of the second, I was sighing, and by the end of the book, I was in a foul mood. The abuse of the ellipsis wasn't the only reason for that, but it was a big one. I find it hard to believe that anyone looked over this before it went to print, or if they did, either Talbot was too well known (?) by then to be edited or they had no grasp of grammar, and I say that as part of the generation that was barely taught what a verb is. I like the ellipsis, but I also like to think I know when to use it, and that would be rarely. But it's present in dialogue or reported monologues throughout and it makes Diana sound dithery or constantly hysterical. Most of the times the ellipsis is there, a comma would be much better. For one thing, it would actually be the correct bit of punctuation and, for another, it would mean that the ellipsis was only present at moments of genuine drama. Although this story is a series of extraordinary events, some shading would be nice. Even if this were a radio play adapted into prose narrative form, someone should have done some judicious editing. (May Wynne was guilty of this kind of breathless punctuation thing in Lend a Hand holiday, but it wasn't so bad.)
As I said, there are other problems. I'm not as much of a stickler for the show don't tell rule as I may sometimes seem, but I resent being told the same thing every three pages. There's little development in what we are told too for Talbot seems to have no faith in the reader's ability to retain information about Diana's emotional state and seems determined to spell it out, sometimes contradicting herself, instead of showing her experiences and letting the reader work it out for themselves. There's a lot of fudging in this, apart from very few descriptive scenes, we are just told that Diana does her job, the last of which is nursing, and that part of the tale made me really respect the Cherry Ames and Jean stories. As with everything that happens to her, Diana seems to fall into nursing, receive little or no training, and her probationary nursing seems to consist of walking a lot and making the other nurses tea.
In fact, this serendipitous way of going about things is probably where my disgust with the book comes in. The story is about a pampered public school girl dealing with unexpected poverty. This she does first by running away from a snobbish, unreliable family friend. Fine. She ends up on a park bench and meets two other girls who don't have a home or a job, but have been living hand to mouth for far longer than our runaway heroine and grew up part of the working-if-they're-lucky class. They mutually save each other's bacon with know-how and pocket money. Diana provides the latter.
She then falls into a job as a hostel manager for girls at the behest of a benevolent factory owner, which she later realises was perfectly suited to her past experience as a public school prefect (no grubby work for her). Does she save or set up a bank account? Horrors, no. Following a fire, she is left a jobless convalescent with only what is in her purse. When her kindly benefactor offers to adopt her, she turns up her nose at a return to her life of luxury, which is fair enough up to a point - although why am I meant to have sympathy for her need to work but not for the loneliness that drives his actions? Is it her girlish charm?
Having turned his offer down, she runs away. Again. And guess what, she has no money or particular plans. A chance meeting with an old school friend confirms her in her new prejudices - luxury bad, certain kinds of job good. She remembers (pages and pages after the reader) a doctor who once helped her out. She finds a refuge and a position with Doctor Hewet's mother, while the doctor himself is mysteriously absent. Eventually, she needs to move on and it is suggested that she becomes a nurse. She thinks about it for two seconds and goes for it. Fortunately, help is desperately needed at a fever hospital, so she gets her job and has many uplifted feelings about it, while the writer is scanty on the detail. For instance, there's something of a romance, but it almost happens retroactively, with much more weight is given to encounters that are underwritten in and of themselves as Diana looks back at them. Even considering that this is a book for girls rather than adults, I don't call that tasteful restraint, it's just weak story telling.
So, every time Diana steps out 'daringly' (or idiotically as I would term it) with no plan, no back-up, no precautions, she is serendipitously provided for. Aargh. Her and the author's position on class, work and the earning of a living is actually pretty snobbish and airy fairy - one minute there is no 'type' of girl, for they are all alike, the next we are reminded of Diana's 'public school poise', which makes her unfit for some positions. Diana's daring, highlighted and praised by the author-as-narrator isn't really anything of the sort and not something to be admired or emulated - her decision not to return to the class she was born to is as much youthful stubbornness as the daring it's touted as being. I don't always (often) agree with the politics put forth in girls' own stories, but I can manage to ignore them, but this story was so poorly told that I had little sympathy for the heroine or patience for being hypocritically patronised.
Unfortunately, this was one of the Hay on Wye haul and I bought two other Ethel Talbots. It's been years since I read her books last and I don't remember being so annoyed by anything she wrote before. I am currently reading an Arthur Ransome book to soothe my lacerated nerves.