REVIEW: Bosom Friends
Apr. 4th, 2021 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllBosom Friends: Angela Brazil, Nelson
Looking over the book for a publishing date, I see it’s subtitled ‘A Seaside Story.’ As I read it, I assumed that this must be one of Brazil’s earlier books, mainly because of it being set some six years after the end of the Boer War (and Wikipedia dates its first publication as 1910.) It’s also graced with the kind of title that people nowadays snigger at. The term ‘bosom friends’ of course means best friends and the book is set over one summer when the 11-year-old heroine Isobel Stewart forms an intense friendship with another girl, blind to the warning red flags about her character that are obvious from their first encounter. In case they aren’t obvious to us from her behaviour, or Isobel’s mother’s worried reaction, the author draws our attention to them. By summer’s end, Isobel’s eyes have been opened to the truth and the friendship is over, but something else has been gained. Having said that, Brazil carelessly uses the term ‘bosom friends’ once to describe a gang of about 20 children.
At one point, I wished the story had been about other members of The United Sea Urchins Recreation Society (the Sea Urchins’ Club for short) that Isobel joins through her first friend, a grouping of girls and boys, in which children of Isobel’s age are the elders, with some younger siblings joining in their doings. The harum-scarum Rokebys made me laugh with their plain speaking (although they will later display less appealing attributes), while Ruth and Edna Barrington’s mother has faddish (unhealthy) ideas about food that scream ‘future eating disorders’ – I’d have loved to see other writers’ take on characters like these.
But Brazil’s focus is on Isobel, the good-natured daughter of a military officer, whose mother has brought her to a north English seaside town with the charming and apposite name of Silversands with an ulterior motive beyond holidaying. A few chapters in, it’s fairly obvious where the story is headed. But soon after their arrival, Mrs Stewart sprains her ankle (I felt sorry for her as she’s stuck in their lodgings for quite a while,) leaving Isobel to entertain herself.
And so she befriends the girl who made such an unfavourable impression on the reader, spoiled, dissatisfied and counting status and wealth above anything else, but makes the opposite impression on young Isobel. It turns out that her name is also Isabelle Stuart - she goes by Belle – which is an extra connection. Through Belle, Isobel is introduced to other children Belle already knows from home - the Sea Urchins' Club – and they have more-or-less credible adventures. In between them, selfish Belle takes advantage of Isobel’s good nature, there is a suspicion that Belle is not entirely truthful here, a bit of animal cruelty there, until Belle drops Isobel for a richer, older and rather catty girl. In fairness, Brazil doesn’t make a huge song and dance about this, while acknowledging that the end of your first friendship can hurt like the end of any other relationships. It’s a learning experience for Isobel, but her mother has given her a healthier, broader outlook on life that stands her in good stead.
It’s very much an Angela Brazil book, even if it’s not the ‘school scrape’ one automatically associates with the authoress. Isobel shares her creator’s love of nature, and the abundance of shells, seaweeds, birds, flowers etc is striking. Although there are sentimental, uncredited quotes under each chapter heading, it mostly avoids the gush you might expect from the book’s title. Still, for modern eyes, the use of the ‘n-word’ and the unthinking colonialist attitudes jump out.
But it’s remarkably focused, covering August into September. Based on other Brazil books, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Isobel’s estranged grandfather had agreed to send her to school, perhaps the same school as Belle, but the story ends with the Sea Urchin Club disbanding, with most of its members leaving Silversands for home. Gloriously, there isn’t one of those horrid chapters where everyone has to tell a story.
Brazil makes the most of her setting, I don’t know if Silversands is based on somewhere real or an amalgam. It’s a town of two halves, ‘the old town’ that’s centred around the fishing industry and the new part, a nascent seaside resort, with a railway station, a few shops for holidaymakers and a Marine Terrace, but only hopes for a promenade. As yet, it’s unspoilt, unlike salutary lesson and neighbour Ferndale, which – horrors! – attracts cheap day trippers. Silversands is still within reach of the moors, and Isobel is able to encounter history, from shipwrecked boats to Viking influences, there.
Of course there is a major plot contrivance revolving around Isobel and Belle’s similarity of name and what Brazil thinks is a suitable happy ending for her heroine. Still, there were little things to appreciate throughout, not least that it reminded me of my own childhood British seaside holidays.
[Edited 2/11/23.]
Looking over the book for a publishing date, I see it’s subtitled ‘A Seaside Story.’ As I read it, I assumed that this must be one of Brazil’s earlier books, mainly because of it being set some six years after the end of the Boer War (and Wikipedia dates its first publication as 1910.) It’s also graced with the kind of title that people nowadays snigger at. The term ‘bosom friends’ of course means best friends and the book is set over one summer when the 11-year-old heroine Isobel Stewart forms an intense friendship with another girl, blind to the warning red flags about her character that are obvious from their first encounter. In case they aren’t obvious to us from her behaviour, or Isobel’s mother’s worried reaction, the author draws our attention to them. By summer’s end, Isobel’s eyes have been opened to the truth and the friendship is over, but something else has been gained. Having said that, Brazil carelessly uses the term ‘bosom friends’ once to describe a gang of about 20 children.
At one point, I wished the story had been about other members of The United Sea Urchins Recreation Society (the Sea Urchins’ Club for short) that Isobel joins through her first friend, a grouping of girls and boys, in which children of Isobel’s age are the elders, with some younger siblings joining in their doings. The harum-scarum Rokebys made me laugh with their plain speaking (although they will later display less appealing attributes), while Ruth and Edna Barrington’s mother has faddish (unhealthy) ideas about food that scream ‘future eating disorders’ – I’d have loved to see other writers’ take on characters like these.
But Brazil’s focus is on Isobel, the good-natured daughter of a military officer, whose mother has brought her to a north English seaside town with the charming and apposite name of Silversands with an ulterior motive beyond holidaying. A few chapters in, it’s fairly obvious where the story is headed. But soon after their arrival, Mrs Stewart sprains her ankle (I felt sorry for her as she’s stuck in their lodgings for quite a while,) leaving Isobel to entertain herself.
And so she befriends the girl who made such an unfavourable impression on the reader, spoiled, dissatisfied and counting status and wealth above anything else, but makes the opposite impression on young Isobel. It turns out that her name is also Isabelle Stuart - she goes by Belle – which is an extra connection. Through Belle, Isobel is introduced to other children Belle already knows from home - the Sea Urchins' Club – and they have more-or-less credible adventures. In between them, selfish Belle takes advantage of Isobel’s good nature, there is a suspicion that Belle is not entirely truthful here, a bit of animal cruelty there, until Belle drops Isobel for a richer, older and rather catty girl. In fairness, Brazil doesn’t make a huge song and dance about this, while acknowledging that the end of your first friendship can hurt like the end of any other relationships. It’s a learning experience for Isobel, but her mother has given her a healthier, broader outlook on life that stands her in good stead.
It’s very much an Angela Brazil book, even if it’s not the ‘school scrape’ one automatically associates with the authoress. Isobel shares her creator’s love of nature, and the abundance of shells, seaweeds, birds, flowers etc is striking. Although there are sentimental, uncredited quotes under each chapter heading, it mostly avoids the gush you might expect from the book’s title. Still, for modern eyes, the use of the ‘n-word’ and the unthinking colonialist attitudes jump out.
But it’s remarkably focused, covering August into September. Based on other Brazil books, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Isobel’s estranged grandfather had agreed to send her to school, perhaps the same school as Belle, but the story ends with the Sea Urchin Club disbanding, with most of its members leaving Silversands for home. Gloriously, there isn’t one of those horrid chapters where everyone has to tell a story.
Brazil makes the most of her setting, I don’t know if Silversands is based on somewhere real or an amalgam. It’s a town of two halves, ‘the old town’ that’s centred around the fishing industry and the new part, a nascent seaside resort, with a railway station, a few shops for holidaymakers and a Marine Terrace, but only hopes for a promenade. As yet, it’s unspoilt, unlike salutary lesson and neighbour Ferndale, which – horrors! – attracts cheap day trippers. Silversands is still within reach of the moors, and Isobel is able to encounter history, from shipwrecked boats to Viking influences, there.
Of course there is a major plot contrivance revolving around Isobel and Belle’s similarity of name and what Brazil thinks is a suitable happy ending for her heroine. Still, there were little things to appreciate throughout, not least that it reminded me of my own childhood British seaside holidays.
[Edited 2/11/23.]
