The Saturday Morning Post (No. 29)

Seeing that I was waiting on some books from the library, and feeling like reading something new, I opened up the library website and pondered, what to search for. Since it had been a little while since I read one of those Furrowed Middlebrow books, so I searched for D E Stevenson, and lo! I found two of her books as ebooks, one I knew I hadn't read, and one, well if I did, it was likely 25 or more years ago. Both were available, so I picked both of them up. My thoughts below.

Just a note; I likely read these books back in November of 2023, as it looks like I'm about 5 weeks behind in my reviews, since I have No. 35 written already. I like the breathing room that give me, so expect more 2023 reads for the next month or so.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Note: A 2023 Read

The Young Clementina by D E  Stevenson C+

Stevenson used an interesting approach to this story. In the beginning it is written as a long letter by the narrator, Charlette, filling in her backstory, so as to clear her mind and come to a decision on what to do with her life. She is writing this letter to an imaginary friend, someone she met briefly on a bus, had a few words with her, but always remembered her. Otherwise friendless, she sets out her dilemma in this long letter that will never be sent. It seems that she has come to as crossroads in her life, and must choose. On one hand, she has settled into a lonely, but familiar rut working in a bookshop in London. On the other hand, she has an offer to take up something new and challenging that involves not only doing something she doesn't know how to do; raise a child, but by doing so she risks opening an old and still painful heartbreak. 

Some time after setting out her back story, the narrator returns to present to write a long letter this imaginary friend telling her about the ramifications of her decision.

I really hate spoilers, so there is not much more I can say, except, as you would no doubt guess, she leaves her lonely but comfortable rut and takes on the new challenge, facing the old heartbreak she had endured.

One aspect that I find interesting about these books is their class/caste attitude. I think it must reflect either that of Mrs Stevenson's or what she thinks her readers expect. In this case, the narrator, Charlette works 9:30 to 6PM in a bookshop, I suppose 5 1/2 days a week - as one did in Britain at this time, Saturday was usually a half day of work. She can't be making a great deal of money, lives in a small one bedroom flat, and yet she still employs a woman for several, hours a day to do housework and cook supper for her. The idea of any of Stevenson's heroines keeping house or cooking themselves is well beyond the pale. Nice women, even in reduced means, still employ servants to do that sort of work.

I enjoyed the book, though I have to admit that I didn't like the ending. It was too overwrought. Plus, I predicted the end as soon as I read the circumstances of one pivotal event. Quite frankly, Molly Chavering would have had the courage to do the ending right, in my opinion. Oh well, a C+ book instead of a B one.

Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D E Stevenson  A

D E Stevenson writes in the forward of this book that a friend of hers, whose daughter was going to marry an officer in a Highland Regiment, wanted to know what the daughter's life would be like, ca. 1930's. Since Mrs Stevenson was married to an British Army officer, she offered to let them read her diary to get an idea of the life. When they returned it, they said that everyone had found it so funny and that she could make it into a very amusing book. "It just needs to be expanded, and you could pep it up a little, couldn't you?" Stevenson, doubtful at first, decided to give it a try, and so she wrote Leaves From the Diary of an Officer's Wife. However, she got so carried away her fictional narrator, Hester, i.e. Mrs Tim, that she wrote a second story about her holiday in the Scottish Highlands that she called Golden Days. However both books were published in an omnibus version, and these days both books are published together as Mrs Tim of the Regiment.

The entire book is written in the form of diary entries. In the first part of the novel, the Leaves From... part, features relatively brief vignettes of the various characters in her life, as a military wife. I find all the little details of daily life in the 1930's England very interesting. Here again we have what I suppose is an upper-middle class family of a British officer, one who is certainly not wealthy, and they employ a staff of 3 to look after their rented house; a cook, a maid, and a nanny to look after their two children. Their son is sent off to a boarding school at the age of 11. And they apparently think that he is perfectly capable of traveling from a small town south of London to Scotland (Glasgow I think) via trains all by himself for his school holiday. Times sure have changed. 

The story becomes more than an account of everyday life in the second Golden Days half of the book. Hester is invited to spend a fortnight in the Highlands with a friend she made after Captain Tim  was transferred to Scotland in the first half of the book. I love stories set in Scotland, and this one is as charming as any, with a cast of interesting characters, situations, and a subtle romance at its core. I'm a sucker for romance, handled as elegantly as Stevenson did in this story.

D E Stevenson can be a mixed bag, none really bad, at least so far, but sometimes I find them to be somewhat "cold."  This one, however, was a winner for me on the strength of  the Golden Days of a holiday in Scotland in the half of the book.