REVIEW: Star and Company
Apr. 15th, 2019 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllStar and Company: Jean Vaughan. Nelson, 1947
I was looking forward to reading this sequel to Lone Star but having done so, I’m not convinced that this story poured out of the writer as a poem bursts out of her heroine at one point during the book. To me, it has more of a whiff of the first book having been a success and the publishers pressurising Vaughan to write a sequel. There’s a series of events, usually mishaps befalling her heroine, loosely tied up with the theme of growing up, rather than the sense of a definite story that had to be told.
I still feel the echo of L. M. Montgomery. Star is a dreamer, a nature lover and a nascent poet. Her best friend Sylvia plays Diana to her Anne in many of her scrapes. Those scrapes come about because Star still lacks common sense, and as someone who has a deficiency of same, I should sympathise more, but Star really lost me over the business of the cow. (To set it out would take a whole paragraph and it’s mostly too ridiculous.) There is also occasionally sarcastic Aunt Emily to straighten things and Star out.
So, Star Henderson is still living in a village in the countryside with her most understanding aunt, and is swept up by the idea of being a Citizen of the Future. She talks most of her peer group into joining a society to live up to noble ideals about preparing for the future, including Sylvia, prospective doctor Bill and new friend Elaine. But Star excludes the odious Timothy Gray, who remains an unrepentant wind-up merchant with too high an opinion of himself. After he lets Star believe that invalid Elaine is dying, I was glad that he didn’t transform into a potential swain.
But over the course of the book, Star is dismayed that some of her friends change their minds about what they wanted, and, indeed, vowed to do. She’s also none too fond of growing up, which is looming in her mind. For much of the book, I couldn’t work out how old she and the others were, but it’s eventually disclosed that Star was twelve at the start of the book and is fast approaching fourteen at the end of it. (This seems to contradict what was said in ‘Lone Star’.) It’s set at a time when children could leave school at fourteen and start earning, while still being children, like Lena, Star’s cousin.
There is also a point when she returns to help out at Aunt Kate’s for a fortnight, because her aunt is sick. Star sees her old home differently. Oh, her aunt is still forever complaining, but Star belongs elsewhere now. Lena has a boyfriend and seems to see Star’s friend Bill in that light. From a few gestures of his, were Vaughan to have written another sequel, I suspected that Star might start seeing him in that light too. But I’d hope Vaughan didn’t write another continuation unless if she had a more definite story in mind (and a quick Google doesn’t suggest that she did). This was too episodic, with Star showing little growth, except perhaps in cooking skills, although I liked spending time in Star and Aunt Emily’s company. Star is likeable, idealistic, well-meaning, impulsive and just contrary enough, but also pretty gullible.
I was looking forward to reading this sequel to Lone Star but having done so, I’m not convinced that this story poured out of the writer as a poem bursts out of her heroine at one point during the book. To me, it has more of a whiff of the first book having been a success and the publishers pressurising Vaughan to write a sequel. There’s a series of events, usually mishaps befalling her heroine, loosely tied up with the theme of growing up, rather than the sense of a definite story that had to be told.
I still feel the echo of L. M. Montgomery. Star is a dreamer, a nature lover and a nascent poet. Her best friend Sylvia plays Diana to her Anne in many of her scrapes. Those scrapes come about because Star still lacks common sense, and as someone who has a deficiency of same, I should sympathise more, but Star really lost me over the business of the cow. (To set it out would take a whole paragraph and it’s mostly too ridiculous.) There is also occasionally sarcastic Aunt Emily to straighten things and Star out.
So, Star Henderson is still living in a village in the countryside with her most understanding aunt, and is swept up by the idea of being a Citizen of the Future. She talks most of her peer group into joining a society to live up to noble ideals about preparing for the future, including Sylvia, prospective doctor Bill and new friend Elaine. But Star excludes the odious Timothy Gray, who remains an unrepentant wind-up merchant with too high an opinion of himself. After he lets Star believe that invalid Elaine is dying, I was glad that he didn’t transform into a potential swain.
But over the course of the book, Star is dismayed that some of her friends change their minds about what they wanted, and, indeed, vowed to do. She’s also none too fond of growing up, which is looming in her mind. For much of the book, I couldn’t work out how old she and the others were, but it’s eventually disclosed that Star was twelve at the start of the book and is fast approaching fourteen at the end of it. (This seems to contradict what was said in ‘Lone Star’.) It’s set at a time when children could leave school at fourteen and start earning, while still being children, like Lena, Star’s cousin.
There is also a point when she returns to help out at Aunt Kate’s for a fortnight, because her aunt is sick. Star sees her old home differently. Oh, her aunt is still forever complaining, but Star belongs elsewhere now. Lena has a boyfriend and seems to see Star’s friend Bill in that light. From a few gestures of his, were Vaughan to have written another sequel, I suspected that Star might start seeing him in that light too. But I’d hope Vaughan didn’t write another continuation unless if she had a more definite story in mind (and a quick Google doesn’t suggest that she did). This was too episodic, with Star showing little growth, except perhaps in cooking skills, although I liked spending time in Star and Aunt Emily’s company. Star is likeable, idealistic, well-meaning, impulsive and just contrary enough, but also pretty gullible.
