I borrowed this (and several other tomes) on my most recent library binge and finished it first out of the batch.
To be perfectly honest, I don't think I would have enjoyed this book half so much had I not entered into reading it with barrel-bottom expectations. The blurb on the back cover hinted at marital infidelity and selfishness, and if there's anything I hate, it's literary indulgence of character flaws. I hate it so much when an author creates a flawed character... and proceeds to excuse and justify all the character's wrongdoings. It drives me up the wall. But this isn't what Dawn French does in A Tiny Bit Marvellous. All of the characters are flawed and broken - and that is sort of the point of the story, which is about how self-centred human beings manage to misread and misunderstand one another - particularly in context of mother-daughter relationships. Of course, with a story like this, the danger is to have the characters get on the readers' nerves - but Dawn French manages to create characters worth caring about, even if they do deserve a regular old slap in the chops most of the time. An easy read - a bit sweary for those who are bothered by vulgarity - but a decent book all in all.
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
The third book to feature Howl and Sophie of Howl's Moving Castle, I would describe House of Many Ways as an Enid Blyton book for tweens - the domestic magic and quieter personal struggles of the characters don't put one in mind of a sweeping fantasy saga, but more a light coming-of-age interlude of a book. A few plot elements felt forced and shoe-horned in, but I found the book to be quite a pleasant experience all in all, though not as good as its predecessors... I will mention that the mental image of the lubbocks kept me awake a little at night, though, so if giant insect like creatures freak you out then better not try this one.
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
Oh. My. Goodness. This is one of those classic novels that I have always put off reading - along with Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies: I don't even know why I expected to dislike it, but I never really planned to read it until I discovered it listed in my uni book readings. I'm glad I never read it before, because it was horrible. I have a list somewhere of female protagonists I would most love to shake and Sybylla now ungraces the top of it. Ugh. My Brilliant Career has been described as an Australian Jane Eyre and I can see the similarities between the two... up to a point. You see, Jane Eyre actually endures quite a lot of hardship in her early life - abusive relatives, hideous schooling system and lost love. I don't particularly like Jane, but after reading My Brilliant Career I shall henceforth hesitate to call her a whinge.
Sybylla, unlike Jane, suffers only mildy - her family's fortunes decline and she suffers Disney-princess-who-just-wants-more syndrome to a staggeringly annoying degree. She decides that she has been cursed with an unnaturally sensitive soul, and, even though the rest of her family is surely enduring the same circumstances as she, none of them suffer as acutely from the lack of fame, wealth and resources as she does. Complaining bitterly of her lack of faith for the entire book, she abuses her mother as a nag, her father as a drunk and her sister as a pretty but shallow pet. She has six or so other siblings, but, owing to her previously described self-centredness, never bothers to think of or mention them until near the end of the book. She then is invited to go and live with her much wealthier grandmother and aunt, who are genteel and refined and concerned for her welfare... and once settled in their comfortable lifestyle, proceeds to bury herself in self pity because she thinks she's ugly. Well, whatever.
Everyone is charming to her, she resents their good humouredness and thinks they must be laughing at her, generally behaves with the worst of motives and somehow ends up with a fiancee whom she does not believe has feelings for her until she angers him to a point where HE LEAVES BRUISES ALL OVER HER ARMS AND SHOULDER. NOT COOL. But, for her, this proves that he must be really in love.
Sadly for the gentleman, he really is in love, but Sybylla believes that all people are as self-centred as she and refuses to admit that any person might have genuine affection for another person. I shan't spoil the ending for you (in any case, describing any further would bore both of us to death, dear reader) but rest assured, Sybylla finds a way to scorn all friendship from all quarters and end up moaning to herself in a hole.
What a horrible book this was.
This is a book that I enjoyed immensely, but do not feel safe recommending to any of my readers. It was heavily romantic, in a Grimms' fairy tales kind of way, but without the urgency of your ordinary fairy tale. It was more of a pastoral idyll. The story is that of Martin Pippin, who must free the farmer's daughter from her dairymaid gaolers by singing songs and telling stories to the dairy maids and softening their hearts to romance and love. It is as nonsensical and frivolous as it sounds, and strangely poetic and philosophical at the same time. But I loved it. I'm having difficulty describing this book, so here, have some quotes from it:
"Why, the world's as full of edges as the dealings of men and women, in which you can scarcely go a day's march without reaching the end of all things and tumbling into heaven. I tell you I have traveled the world more than any man living, and it takes me all my time to keep from falling off the brink. Round? The world is one great precipice!"
"Women are so strangely constructed that they have in them darkness as well as light, though it be but a little curtain hung across the sun. And love is the hand that takes the curtain down, a stronger hand than fear, which hung it up. For all the ill that is in us comes from fear, and all the good from love."
