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feather_ghyll) wrote2009-08-30 03:51 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2009-08-30 03:51 pm
REVIEW: The Girl Who Wouldn't Make Friends
The Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends: Elsie J. Oxenham Nelsion Triumph Series
I bought this because it was by EJO, but by the end of the first chapter, I knew I’d read about the further adventures of Robin and the Abbey links to Plas Quellyn. Not that I can remember much about them, and I’ll have to hunt up my copy of Robins at the Abbey. Of course, it should be no surprise to me that it's linked, aren't all her books?
The only daughter between two brothers – Cuthbert ‘The Tortoise’ and Dicky ‘The Hare’ – Robertina Brent discovers the reason for her odd name on the same day that she discovers that she has inherited the estate of Plas Quellyn. Robert Quellyn was her mother’s childhood friend. He wanted to marry her, but by the time that he found her to propose, she had fallen in love with and married the children’s father. Quellyn became a well-known artist and had a chance to help the family financially just before Robertina – familiarised to Robinette and even Robin – was born, and the Brents chose not to name her Roberta in gratitude. (Sorry, I find Robertina ridiculous). He made out his will to her not long after, if he were not survived by a wife and child, and never rewrote it.
Thirteen years passed, during which he married, but no children were born to them and his wife predeceased him – one of the subjects of his famous paintings based on the Mabinogion. So, Robin Brent is his heiress.
But a letter from Gwyneth Parry, Robert Quellyn’s sister in law, mentions the orphaned daughter of a friend that Quellyn and his wife had taken on as their own. I know that this is the early twentieth century, but they apparently never went on to legally adopt her, although Oxenham has one of the characters refer to her as Miss Quellyn, there is no talk or expectation of this little Welsh girl, also called Gwyneth and referred to as Gwyneth fach, inheriting the house. This struck me as off, because surely the girl who grew up in and knew Plas Quellyn and the nearby cottage of Moranedd so thoroughly and called Quellyn ‘Daddy’ would have a better moral claim on the place than the (English) daughter of a woman he had a boyhood feeling for, even if not a legal one. But EJO never seems to see this as an issue, perhaps because she is so focused on the characterisations.
Gwyneth fach is indeed the Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends, but it is mainly pride and having been allowed to have her own way that drives her. She feels the Brents are taking her on as a responsibility because they have to, because she comes along with everything else to do with the properties and is not seen as a person who is wanted. So she decides to hate them, rejecting Robin’s numerous gestures – Robin is the Girl Who Would Make Friends. Gwyneth hides from them (and steals some of Robin’s property, actually). The locals, the Brents' new friend, Ivor, and the elder Gwyneth keep her secrets until an accident that hurts Robin starts showing Gwyneth fach how mean some of her tricks are, all the more so when serious illness strikes the newcomers’ father. Meanwhile, Robin really is extremely forbearing towards the other girl, (because she pathologically wants another sister?). There’s some talk of morality – Gwyneth had no strong foundations and no parental checks. In fact, if you read between the lines, RQ comes across as fecklessly irresponsible. There’s no talk of an especially Christian background – his interest is in the Mabinogion, which came to us via monastic hands but are rooted in pre-Christian tradition.
Although she is, it is to be presumed, the Brent’s dependant and social equal, somehow, Gwyneth fach’s status and background is never stated. She isn’t a traditional Welsh chapel girl, and we aren't told of her education, although she is fully bilingual, which suggests some level of local education. With all that in mind, I found the whole premise of the book a little bizarre.
Robin is in the Joan and Jenny-Wren mould (whom I don’t mind), but Cuthbert and Dicky...Well, Cuthbert wants to be a doctor, so he’s borderline cruel to any animals that cross his path, in the desire to study them. Dicky really got on my nerves. He’s the youngest child and the one who says the most tactless thing at the most inopportune time, flies off the handle, rushes at things and mostly gets away with it because he is nine. Brat. Actually, the female characters seem to be indulgent, beyond telling them off in a way that seems designed to bounce off them.
There’s also the issue of the Welsh setting. I thought EJO was fairly sympathetic, and presume that she’d been to this area as a visitor, though her viewpoint is that of an outsider. The spelling of the placenames was really mixed, sometimes Welsh, sometimes Anglicised (there is no ‘v’ in Welsh and calling Yr Eifl the Rivals is ACTUALLY a travesty, not a joke). Some of the Welsh dialogue is plain wrong, but although EJO and her characters can’t explain the rules of mutation or reasons for it, at least she acknowledges it exists. At times, too, EJO’s forgetfulness or lack of comprehension that the Gwyneths and Ivor would talk Welsh among themselves bugged me. She seemed to share a little too much of bigoted John Bull Dicky’s perspective.
Anyway, the book ends on a rubbish defence by the now united children of Gwyneth fach’s hideout from thieves who have discovered she’s keeping some of RQ’s paintings there (both of which are technically Robin's property). By rubbish, I mean Peggy the Amazon and Roger Walker could have come up with better strategies between them.
It was an interesting and absorbing read, Oxenham usually charms me, even if EJO’s prejudices came up against mine a fair bit, and I really must hunt up the relevant Abbey books to refresh my memory as to what happened next.
Edited for typos 3/5/10.
I bought this because it was by EJO, but by the end of the first chapter, I knew I’d read about the further adventures of Robin and the Abbey links to Plas Quellyn. Not that I can remember much about them, and I’ll have to hunt up my copy of Robins at the Abbey. Of course, it should be no surprise to me that it's linked, aren't all her books?
The only daughter between two brothers – Cuthbert ‘The Tortoise’ and Dicky ‘The Hare’ – Robertina Brent discovers the reason for her odd name on the same day that she discovers that she has inherited the estate of Plas Quellyn. Robert Quellyn was her mother’s childhood friend. He wanted to marry her, but by the time that he found her to propose, she had fallen in love with and married the children’s father. Quellyn became a well-known artist and had a chance to help the family financially just before Robertina – familiarised to Robinette and even Robin – was born, and the Brents chose not to name her Roberta in gratitude. (Sorry, I find Robertina ridiculous). He made out his will to her not long after, if he were not survived by a wife and child, and never rewrote it.
Thirteen years passed, during which he married, but no children were born to them and his wife predeceased him – one of the subjects of his famous paintings based on the Mabinogion. So, Robin Brent is his heiress.
But a letter from Gwyneth Parry, Robert Quellyn’s sister in law, mentions the orphaned daughter of a friend that Quellyn and his wife had taken on as their own. I know that this is the early twentieth century, but they apparently never went on to legally adopt her, although Oxenham has one of the characters refer to her as Miss Quellyn, there is no talk or expectation of this little Welsh girl, also called Gwyneth and referred to as Gwyneth fach, inheriting the house. This struck me as off, because surely the girl who grew up in and knew Plas Quellyn and the nearby cottage of Moranedd so thoroughly and called Quellyn ‘Daddy’ would have a better moral claim on the place than the (English) daughter of a woman he had a boyhood feeling for, even if not a legal one. But EJO never seems to see this as an issue, perhaps because she is so focused on the characterisations.
Gwyneth fach is indeed the Girl Who Wouldn’t Make Friends, but it is mainly pride and having been allowed to have her own way that drives her. She feels the Brents are taking her on as a responsibility because they have to, because she comes along with everything else to do with the properties and is not seen as a person who is wanted. So she decides to hate them, rejecting Robin’s numerous gestures – Robin is the Girl Who Would Make Friends. Gwyneth hides from them (and steals some of Robin’s property, actually). The locals, the Brents' new friend, Ivor, and the elder Gwyneth keep her secrets until an accident that hurts Robin starts showing Gwyneth fach how mean some of her tricks are, all the more so when serious illness strikes the newcomers’ father. Meanwhile, Robin really is extremely forbearing towards the other girl, (because she pathologically wants another sister?). There’s some talk of morality – Gwyneth had no strong foundations and no parental checks. In fact, if you read between the lines, RQ comes across as fecklessly irresponsible. There’s no talk of an especially Christian background – his interest is in the Mabinogion, which came to us via monastic hands but are rooted in pre-Christian tradition.
Although she is, it is to be presumed, the Brent’s dependant and social equal, somehow, Gwyneth fach’s status and background is never stated. She isn’t a traditional Welsh chapel girl, and we aren't told of her education, although she is fully bilingual, which suggests some level of local education. With all that in mind, I found the whole premise of the book a little bizarre.
Robin is in the Joan and Jenny-Wren mould (whom I don’t mind), but Cuthbert and Dicky...Well, Cuthbert wants to be a doctor, so he’s borderline cruel to any animals that cross his path, in the desire to study them. Dicky really got on my nerves. He’s the youngest child and the one who says the most tactless thing at the most inopportune time, flies off the handle, rushes at things and mostly gets away with it because he is nine. Brat. Actually, the female characters seem to be indulgent, beyond telling them off in a way that seems designed to bounce off them.
There’s also the issue of the Welsh setting. I thought EJO was fairly sympathetic, and presume that she’d been to this area as a visitor, though her viewpoint is that of an outsider. The spelling of the placenames was really mixed, sometimes Welsh, sometimes Anglicised (there is no ‘v’ in Welsh and calling Yr Eifl the Rivals is ACTUALLY a travesty, not a joke). Some of the Welsh dialogue is plain wrong, but although EJO and her characters can’t explain the rules of mutation or reasons for it, at least she acknowledges it exists. At times, too, EJO’s forgetfulness or lack of comprehension that the Gwyneths and Ivor would talk Welsh among themselves bugged me. She seemed to share a little too much of bigoted John Bull Dicky’s perspective.
Anyway, the book ends on a rubbish defence by the now united children of Gwyneth fach’s hideout from thieves who have discovered she’s keeping some of RQ’s paintings there (both of which are technically Robin's property). By rubbish, I mean Peggy the Amazon and Roger Walker could have come up with better strategies between them.
It was an interesting and absorbing read, Oxenham usually charms me, even if EJO’s prejudices came up against mine a fair bit, and I really must hunt up the relevant Abbey books to refresh my memory as to what happened next.
Edited for typos 3/5/10.
no subject
I've never read this one and had to piece together all the background from Robins. Once Robin is centre stage, Cuthbert and Dicky seem to have disappeared from the scene? Then there's all the Ivor Quellyn nonsense. Even deducing things from later books, I felt Gwyneth was hard done by.
no subject
About all I can remember from Robins is Robinette going to the Abbey to decide something?? I'm seriously considering rereading all my Abbey books in the order of the action. Of course, they're still at my parents house...
It's hard to believe that the Quellyns didn't have to do something legal to take care of her, even if they didn't adopt her and that Quellyn didn't make provision for her if the girl was being bought up to call him Daddy. But no. It's daft.