The Saturday Morning Post (No. 187)

 

This week we have another book that I've been introduced to by watching various BookTubers on YouTube. This time Roy Reads Anything, and his monthly read-along series of "Forgotten Victorian Bestselling Authors." In his introduction to this author, he sounded like someone whose story I wouldn't mind reading. Was I right?

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

Lost Sir Massingberd, A Romance of Real Life (Volumes 1 & 2) James Payn  B-

I have already posted a selection from the introduction to this book regarding how everyone the author knew seemed to be a writer of some sort as an illustration that some things never change.

This book was published in 1864, and reflects the type of popular fiction of the period, and yet, I think its writing style is still accessible to modern readers. The story is told by a first person narrator looking back on an incident of his youth. The older persona of the elder narrator is very much present in the narration, which is not my favorite style, but at least the narrator has a sense of humor, which leavens the somewhat gothic melodrama of the story.

The story itself concerns a unapologetically cruel and heartless man, the title character, Sir Massingberd, and his ward and nephew, the young heir to the large country estate they are living in. Since the cruel uncle is the first born, he inherited the estate, which he could then pass on to his son, if he had one, which he doesn't. And so the estate will belong to the son of his younger brother, this nephew of his, aged 17 at the start of the story. But only if he reaches the of age at 21. Fine, except that Sir Massingberd spent all his money in his youth, and because much of the estate  is "entailed" meaning that he can not sell it, he is almost always penny-less, earning what money he can from selling the fruit he grows in an enclosed garden, and what he can more or less steal from the estate that he lives on. As I said he is the guardian of this nephew who, rightfully, lives in terror of his uncle who would want him dead and has likely tried to kill him. In the story he escapes his uncle's clutches after one such failed attempt, only for a time. 

The story also explores the backstory of Sir Massingberd, and the customs of the period in which this story is set, Napoleonic/Regency period. 

I enjoyed the story, though I found it a little more Victorian, i.e. melodramatic, than I had been hoping for, after reading the introduction, while at the same time, less Gothic than its premise promised to be.