REVIEW: Sisters Three
May. 6th, 2013 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllSisters Three: Mrs George De Horne Vaizey
Cassell and Company (My copy is dated Christmas 1920)
Surely this book was influenced by ‘Little Women’ – it certainly reminded me of it. As the title suggests, it focuses on three sisters in a larger family. One New Year’s Day, they indulge in a good grumble, which shocks their widowed father, but they’ve reached that stage of girlhood where they’re almost grown up – little women, if you will - and are frustrated by the confines of their lives.
‘They’ are 17 year old Hilary, who has been running their north country house since they moved there three years ago from London after their mother’s death; Lettice, who is next in age and bidding fair to become a beauty; and Norah, who is desperate for a good musical teacher. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a governess they’ve outgrown, little society – their brothers get to go to boarding school – they lack interests and just can’t be as grateful as their baby sister Mouse – really Geraldine – urges them to be. Mouse is adorable, but only a bit player and has some Beth-like qualities. The others have a mixture of the March sisters in them, but rebellious, adventurous, creative Norah is most like Jo (and gets her Laurie).
They have an Aunt March figure in an old friend/sponsor of their writer father. Helen Carr (was Katy Carr’s Cousin Helen a Carr, I wondered in passing) lives in London and the girls' father turns to her for advice after realising that they have some cause to grumble and things can't carry on as they have, as they're on the verge of growing up. I fully expected the answer to be a stepmother at this point.
By the time she gives her advice, the girls have got to know their neighbours Rex and Edna, which expands their social circle and gives Norah a chance to prove she’s the genius she claims to be. Hilary is taken to London for a visit, where ‘Miss Consequence’ learns that she isn’t as important as she thought herself, first in London itself and then at home, where they managed fine, if not better, without her management. Then a great chance is offered to Lettice (making her Amy and Hilary Jo, suddenly.)
Three years later, will the girls, with all their potential and faults, have grown to become young women of good character?
What was particularly striking about this book was that nearly everyone had their faults. I really didn’t like any of the titular heroines much when we first met them. Apart from the fact that they were moaning, Norah seemed boastful, Lettice loved to be popular and for things to be ‘nice’. Their brothers, by the way, were horrors, indulging in pranks that ended up being dangerous, but they never get reprimanded about it – their characters weren’t the writer’s focus. Miss Carr was eccentric and treated people inconsistently, letting one of her young charges down rather badly. Rex was emotionally constipated (and a chauvinist) although that may not have been seen as a fault at a time when a man’s manliness was revealed by...his moustache.
What’s more, the writer was interested in those faults. Characters were quite frank with each other about them – even a disabled man got told off for being too full of pride, refusing sympathetic help and making life more difficult for himself. There were some points where I’d take issue with the characters’ and authorial interpretation of these faults, but it was refreshing to read a book from this era that dealt with character in a pretty self-aware manner. It was very much written for girls - Lettice’s error of agreeing to marry a man she didn’t love and could barely even stand would probably have led to the marriage taking place in a book that skewed older. And yes, there was some melodrama, but there were also real, day-to-day domestic incidents and concerns.
I found I did care about the characters’ development and eventual happiness. So I was glad that, with no Marmee (or stepmother!), the three sisters muddled through and come out the other side.
[Edited for typos on 11/12/2022.]
Cassell and Company (My copy is dated Christmas 1920)
Surely this book was influenced by ‘Little Women’ – it certainly reminded me of it. As the title suggests, it focuses on three sisters in a larger family. One New Year’s Day, they indulge in a good grumble, which shocks their widowed father, but they’ve reached that stage of girlhood where they’re almost grown up – little women, if you will - and are frustrated by the confines of their lives.
‘They’ are 17 year old Hilary, who has been running their north country house since they moved there three years ago from London after their mother’s death; Lettice, who is next in age and bidding fair to become a beauty; and Norah, who is desperate for a good musical teacher. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a governess they’ve outgrown, little society – their brothers get to go to boarding school – they lack interests and just can’t be as grateful as their baby sister Mouse – really Geraldine – urges them to be. Mouse is adorable, but only a bit player and has some Beth-like qualities. The others have a mixture of the March sisters in them, but rebellious, adventurous, creative Norah is most like Jo (and gets her Laurie).
They have an Aunt March figure in an old friend/sponsor of their writer father. Helen Carr (was Katy Carr’s Cousin Helen a Carr, I wondered in passing) lives in London and the girls' father turns to her for advice after realising that they have some cause to grumble and things can't carry on as they have, as they're on the verge of growing up. I fully expected the answer to be a stepmother at this point.
By the time she gives her advice, the girls have got to know their neighbours Rex and Edna, which expands their social circle and gives Norah a chance to prove she’s the genius she claims to be. Hilary is taken to London for a visit, where ‘Miss Consequence’ learns that she isn’t as important as she thought herself, first in London itself and then at home, where they managed fine, if not better, without her management. Then a great chance is offered to Lettice (making her Amy and Hilary Jo, suddenly.)
Three years later, will the girls, with all their potential and faults, have grown to become young women of good character?
What was particularly striking about this book was that nearly everyone had their faults. I really didn’t like any of the titular heroines much when we first met them. Apart from the fact that they were moaning, Norah seemed boastful, Lettice loved to be popular and for things to be ‘nice’. Their brothers, by the way, were horrors, indulging in pranks that ended up being dangerous, but they never get reprimanded about it – their characters weren’t the writer’s focus. Miss Carr was eccentric and treated people inconsistently, letting one of her young charges down rather badly. Rex was emotionally constipated (and a chauvinist) although that may not have been seen as a fault at a time when a man’s manliness was revealed by...his moustache.
What’s more, the writer was interested in those faults. Characters were quite frank with each other about them – even a disabled man got told off for being too full of pride, refusing sympathetic help and making life more difficult for himself. There were some points where I’d take issue with the characters’ and authorial interpretation of these faults, but it was refreshing to read a book from this era that dealt with character in a pretty self-aware manner. It was very much written for girls - Lettice’s error of agreeing to marry a man she didn’t love and could barely even stand would probably have led to the marriage taking place in a book that skewed older. And yes, there was some melodrama, but there were also real, day-to-day domestic incidents and concerns.
I found I did care about the characters’ development and eventual happiness. So I was glad that, with no Marmee (or stepmother!), the three sisters muddled through and come out the other side.
[Edited for typos on 11/12/2022.]
