The Saturday Morning Post (No. 139)

 

A reread this time around. This is a very special book to me, since the copy I have was my grandmother's. She wrote her name, her maiden name, on the first page. She received this book as a Christmas present from a friend of hers, Leona, which I know because she kept the gift tag with the book. Grandma Algiers was born in 1894, and married in 1917. The version of the book I have is the 1908 version, so I would expect she received it within a few years after that date. It also happens to be the book that I used as a reference in the painting above.

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. 

When Patty Went to College   by Jean Webster  B-

I am probably grading this book on a slight curve, due to the book's connection to Grandma, and taking into account that I am not the audience Jean Webster was writing for. Still, it is an interesting book; a series of fifteen episodes featuring Patty and her friends during their senior year at an all girl's college. Webster attended Vassar, so it likely represents life at that college at the turn of the last century. 

The episodes are a mix of slight and humorous little vignettes and slightly more serious ones. For example, the first vignette describes setting up their room; painting the floor black, hanging tapestries on the wall (against the rules) and dealing with the janitor. Another is about a game of making up stories about staff and students "Locale Color" that are so ridiculous that no one would believe them... except some do and trouble ensues. There is one about befriending a very lonely and homesick girl who just doesn't seem to fit in and discovering why. And an episode about some of Patty's friends signing up a fictional girl for Patty's German Club - a girl who of course never shows up, and who Patty can find no trace of in the school records, even though she sends notes explaining why she didn't attend the meetings... You get the idea.

I will leave you with this one nugget of wisdom from Patty, who, after getting out of another of her scrapes with officialdom states; "When you have to explain to a woman," she said in the tone of one who is stating a natural law, "it is better to write a note; but when it is a man, always explain person."

Not a book you need to go out and read, though if it does interest you, you can download and read it from Gutenberg.