REVIEW: Glenallan's Daughters
Feb. 8th, 2015 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllGlenallan’s Daughters: Bessie Marchant Nelson (no date, although it was awarded as a Sunday school book in 1935)
I misread the title and thought this was about Glenallan’s Daughter, assuming for a few chapters in that it would be around the first of the two girls introduced, Kitty, who is perhaps the more prominent. (I have no excuse, the illustration on the front is of two girls.)
First things first, however, this book is of its time and about Empire building. It is set in and around the Glenallan’s rubber plantation in Malaysia, where the natives (and that’s the word used) speak Tamil or occasionally some mysterious tribal dialect. In the main, they are superstitious while the best of them, usually the named characters like Klang the overseer, Wing the Chinese maid and Sagoola, a feared/respected older woman, show a fierce loyalty to the Glenallans.
On the other hand, it is pro-women. Since returning from school in England, Kitty has become her widowed father’s right hand, taking over the books and keeping an eye on his workers. She dislikes Klang’s assumption that Sagoola is, like all women, automatically a harbinger of doom, but Sagoola is something like the local crone. Kitty is also easily riled by any man looking down at her because of her sex, as, admittedly, Government official Hugh Broadhurst does. (He wants to protect her!) Give her a cup of tea and a good night’s rest and she will face quite a lot of danger.
This is where I should say that the story is not all about Kitty, impetuous, strong-minded in some ways, but it’s about her younger and quieter sister Ro (Roberta) too. While Kitty helped their father, Ro took over the house, for their mother died when they were away. Both girls have had to rely on each other, to some degree.
The story begins when their father leaves Kwalador, their home, quickly and unexpectedly, and Ro reveals that she has read their dead mother’s diary, which revealed that, unbeknownst to the girls, their father’s name was under a cloud while they were away as circumstantial evidence tied him to a ship wrecking. It also revealed that, before their mother’s death, she had left on a journey with the mysterious Sagoola to try to clear his name. As their father does not come back, the two girls begin to wonder about the mystery of their mother’s death and whether she succeeded, for another boat has been wrecked and the Government should like to speak to the missing Glenallan.
Soon Kitty is setting out on a journey across the hot and dangerous countryside to try to find Sagoola, but Sagoola comes to Kwalador, claiming to have a message from the girls’ father. Injured in the Holes of Enchantment, where she took their mother, he wants Kitty, ‘the strong one’ he has always relied on, but must make do with Ro. Will she be strong enough to make the journey? And what of Kitty, is her journey to be in vain?
By the end, the female characters have proved to be tougher than the men. There are the usual ridiculous coincidences (Mrs G is not dead, she has been imprisoned by the pirate villain, Chin Har, who just happens to be Sagoola’s son who was sent to school in England and Germany), lots of adventurous encounters (storms, elephants rampaging, riots). There are occasional inconsistencies in characterisation, one chapter where the adjective ‘sweet’ is used far too often, and despite their inner steel, Kitty and Ro have several emotional wobbles in case you thought they were too unfeminine. It is about what you’d expect from a Bessie Marchant. I did feel a little cheated by the ending, though, which wraps things up rather hurriedly, without, for example, giving the satisfaction of Mr Glenallan acknowledging Ro’s strength in a time of crisis, as if Marchant had lost interest now that everyone was home safely (or, more likely, needed to get on to producing another of her books.)
I misread the title and thought this was about Glenallan’s Daughter, assuming for a few chapters in that it would be around the first of the two girls introduced, Kitty, who is perhaps the more prominent. (I have no excuse, the illustration on the front is of two girls.)
First things first, however, this book is of its time and about Empire building. It is set in and around the Glenallan’s rubber plantation in Malaysia, where the natives (and that’s the word used) speak Tamil or occasionally some mysterious tribal dialect. In the main, they are superstitious while the best of them, usually the named characters like Klang the overseer, Wing the Chinese maid and Sagoola, a feared/respected older woman, show a fierce loyalty to the Glenallans.
On the other hand, it is pro-women. Since returning from school in England, Kitty has become her widowed father’s right hand, taking over the books and keeping an eye on his workers. She dislikes Klang’s assumption that Sagoola is, like all women, automatically a harbinger of doom, but Sagoola is something like the local crone. Kitty is also easily riled by any man looking down at her because of her sex, as, admittedly, Government official Hugh Broadhurst does. (He wants to protect her!) Give her a cup of tea and a good night’s rest and she will face quite a lot of danger.
This is where I should say that the story is not all about Kitty, impetuous, strong-minded in some ways, but it’s about her younger and quieter sister Ro (Roberta) too. While Kitty helped their father, Ro took over the house, for their mother died when they were away. Both girls have had to rely on each other, to some degree.
The story begins when their father leaves Kwalador, their home, quickly and unexpectedly, and Ro reveals that she has read their dead mother’s diary, which revealed that, unbeknownst to the girls, their father’s name was under a cloud while they were away as circumstantial evidence tied him to a ship wrecking. It also revealed that, before their mother’s death, she had left on a journey with the mysterious Sagoola to try to clear his name. As their father does not come back, the two girls begin to wonder about the mystery of their mother’s death and whether she succeeded, for another boat has been wrecked and the Government should like to speak to the missing Glenallan.
Soon Kitty is setting out on a journey across the hot and dangerous countryside to try to find Sagoola, but Sagoola comes to Kwalador, claiming to have a message from the girls’ father. Injured in the Holes of Enchantment, where she took their mother, he wants Kitty, ‘the strong one’ he has always relied on, but must make do with Ro. Will she be strong enough to make the journey? And what of Kitty, is her journey to be in vain?
By the end, the female characters have proved to be tougher than the men. There are the usual ridiculous coincidences (Mrs G is not dead, she has been imprisoned by the pirate villain, Chin Har, who just happens to be Sagoola’s son who was sent to school in England and Germany), lots of adventurous encounters (storms, elephants rampaging, riots). There are occasional inconsistencies in characterisation, one chapter where the adjective ‘sweet’ is used far too often, and despite their inner steel, Kitty and Ro have several emotional wobbles in case you thought they were too unfeminine. It is about what you’d expect from a Bessie Marchant. I did feel a little cheated by the ending, though, which wraps things up rather hurriedly, without, for example, giving the satisfaction of Mr Glenallan acknowledging Ro’s strength in a time of crisis, as if Marchant had lost interest now that everyone was home safely (or, more likely, needed to get on to producing another of her books.)
