PERSONAL/OVERVIEW: Under the Lilacs
May. 30th, 2010 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllI haven't posted for a while, because I haven't read much for a while - the next book I'm going to write about was read in snatches. If nothing else, I'd like to change that this week, but then the tennis on TV season has begun, with the French and the distinctive thwap, thwap of the players getting the clay out of the grips of their shoes between points, so I may get distracted. At the beginning of last week, I managed to get home and either catch them listing the order of play for the next day or see the message that 'This stream has now finished', for yes, I have added the 'red button channel' to my favourites.
However, I have managed to see varying amounts of Ivanovic, Murray, Henin, Serena Williams, Djokovic, Nadal and Sharapova play. I hope that Murray starts getting easier matches or makes them easier matches. Djokovic's serve! Nadal was scarily good at times.
Under the Lilacs: Lousia M. Alcott Blackie
I bought this 12 years ago, because I am a completist, and having read the Little Women quartette, wanted more of Alcott's books. I'm glad I did to get Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, but everything else hasn't been able to sustain my interest. I suspect that the main reason I never sat down and read this book properly was because it began with a doll's tea party. This time, because it was part of a pile of books that I AM going to read/reread (and make a judgment on whether I keep them or give them away) I began it last Sunday and finished it last night.
In brief, it's the story of the girls having the aforementioned tea party, Bab and Betty Moss, and the boy and his dog who interrupted them. Ben and Sancho have, excitingly, run away from a circus, where he was starting to get mistreated once his father left for an opportunity to work with mustangs in California. The fatherless girls live next to a big house in a village(?) some 100 miles away from New York, where their mother and the village Squire (this surprised me, because I didn't know Americans had such things) take the boy on. He is given a home and jobs with the animals that he loves, and then the owners of the big house, Celia and her convalescing brother Thornton, return and take a further interest in the young ones, with Celia being a particularly good and steadying influence on Ben, who starts to go to school, and a champion for tomboyish Bab - a shadow of Jo/Louisa, while Betty's true heart makes her a champion for Sancho.
It's sentimental - there's a dog, a boy who thinks he's orphaned, a fiance who's overseas, but, at the same time, there are 'thrilling' episodes, with Ben's horseriding ability and past as a circus boy as well as Bab's impetuosity playing their part. So, it's a tempered sentimentality, but still there. I can't say it's a keeper, and I probably should have read it much sooner (as in years before I came across it) to have enjoyed it more.
However, I have managed to see varying amounts of Ivanovic, Murray, Henin, Serena Williams, Djokovic, Nadal and Sharapova play. I hope that Murray starts getting easier matches or makes them easier matches. Djokovic's serve! Nadal was scarily good at times.
Under the Lilacs: Lousia M. Alcott Blackie
I bought this 12 years ago, because I am a completist, and having read the Little Women quartette, wanted more of Alcott's books. I'm glad I did to get Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, but everything else hasn't been able to sustain my interest. I suspect that the main reason I never sat down and read this book properly was because it began with a doll's tea party. This time, because it was part of a pile of books that I AM going to read/reread (and make a judgment on whether I keep them or give them away) I began it last Sunday and finished it last night.
In brief, it's the story of the girls having the aforementioned tea party, Bab and Betty Moss, and the boy and his dog who interrupted them. Ben and Sancho have, excitingly, run away from a circus, where he was starting to get mistreated once his father left for an opportunity to work with mustangs in California. The fatherless girls live next to a big house in a village(?) some 100 miles away from New York, where their mother and the village Squire (this surprised me, because I didn't know Americans had such things) take the boy on. He is given a home and jobs with the animals that he loves, and then the owners of the big house, Celia and her convalescing brother Thornton, return and take a further interest in the young ones, with Celia being a particularly good and steadying influence on Ben, who starts to go to school, and a champion for tomboyish Bab - a shadow of Jo/Louisa, while Betty's true heart makes her a champion for Sancho.
It's sentimental - there's a dog, a boy who thinks he's orphaned, a fiance who's overseas, but, at the same time, there are 'thrilling' episodes, with Ben's horseriding ability and past as a circus boy as well as Bab's impetuosity playing their part. So, it's a tempered sentimentality, but still there. I can't say it's a keeper, and I probably should have read it much sooner (as in years before I came across it) to have enjoyed it more.
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Date: 2010-05-30 08:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 06:54 am (UTC)