feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2007-09-30 03:21 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2007-09-30 03:21 pm
REVIEW: The Rivals of Maidenhurst
I have been half thinking about using some sort of rating system for my book reviews. Would it be useful? Is it too much bother - I suspect I'd get bogged down by guilt at my own subjectivity, and it would have to be something as stark as poor, all right, good and must read? Anyway, if I were to institute a rating system, this would get the lowest rating.
The Rivals of Maidenhurst by Dorothy M. Parkin. Nelson, premier series.
This book irritated me from the get-go, introducing us to heroine Frances Henton, farmer's 14 year old daughter, resident of the 'hamlet' of Dolgelly (for future reference, the correct spelling is Dolgellau). She is about as Welsh as I am Fijian, although her family is supposed to have been there for aeons.
Spoiled, lively Frances is to be sent to school, and thus to the Peak District she goes, to attend Maidenhurst school. There, she meets good Gwen (good Welsh name), with whom she chums up quickly, bad Doris, who resents her arrival and immediate popularity, and falls hard for the charms of the young games mistress, Miss Perthe. It really is that pantomimeish.
It's very melodramatic, as Doris wages a sneaky campaign designed to make Frances look bad. Those in authority act like idiots - to wit the hockey captain's indiscretion, the lack of a fire drill and particularly in the figure of the headmistress. There's a Snow Storm, a Fatal Accident in the Past, two Daring Rescues by our impetuous, fearless heroine, who also learns hockey in five minutes flat to a good enough standard to get into the first eleven. All the cliches, only worse than usual.
In short, it's tosh to be zipped through in about an hour. Or avoided.
Googling informed me that Folly magazine considered this at least a contender for an awful book award, but this cached (?) obituary of Dorothy Clewes reveals that Rivals was Clewes (nee Parkin)'s first novel and was published in 1925 when she was 18, which explains a lot. (Not what publisher Nelson was thinking, really, but still). She went on to write books that, by my recollection, were markedly better.
The Rivals of Maidenhurst by Dorothy M. Parkin. Nelson, premier series.
This book irritated me from the get-go, introducing us to heroine Frances Henton, farmer's 14 year old daughter, resident of the 'hamlet' of Dolgelly (for future reference, the correct spelling is Dolgellau). She is about as Welsh as I am Fijian, although her family is supposed to have been there for aeons.
Spoiled, lively Frances is to be sent to school, and thus to the Peak District she goes, to attend Maidenhurst school. There, she meets good Gwen (good Welsh name), with whom she chums up quickly, bad Doris, who resents her arrival and immediate popularity, and falls hard for the charms of the young games mistress, Miss Perthe. It really is that pantomimeish.
It's very melodramatic, as Doris wages a sneaky campaign designed to make Frances look bad. Those in authority act like idiots - to wit the hockey captain's indiscretion, the lack of a fire drill and particularly in the figure of the headmistress. There's a Snow Storm, a Fatal Accident in the Past, two Daring Rescues by our impetuous, fearless heroine, who also learns hockey in five minutes flat to a good enough standard to get into the first eleven. All the cliches, only worse than usual.
In short, it's tosh to be zipped through in about an hour. Or avoided.
Googling informed me that Folly magazine considered this at least a contender for an awful book award, but this cached (?) obituary of Dorothy Clewes reveals that Rivals was Clewes (nee Parkin)'s first novel and was published in 1925 when she was 18, which explains a lot. (Not what publisher Nelson was thinking, really, but still). She went on to write books that, by my recollection, were markedly better.