#an english squire by christabel coleridge

[fictionadventurer]

3-7 and 23 for the 2024 Reads in Review, please?

3. DNF With Prejudice: Book(s) you didn't finish on purpose

The Two Marys by Margaret Oliphant. I finished the title story, but it disappointed me enough that I couldn't bring myself to continue with the second novella, which promised to be pretty basic and mediocre.

4. DNF With Regrets: Book(s) you didn't finish but want to get back to

I really want to finish An English Squire by Christabel Coleridge. I liked the story and the characters, and I fell off reading at a very exciting point. I just have to find the motivation to finish it when there are a lot of other Victorian books demanding my attention.

5. Crowd Pleaser: Book you would recommend to almost anyone

What It Means to Be a Christian by Joseph Ratzinger is a book I can recommend to almost anyone with a Catholic bent, because it is extremely short and readable, while still having some good insights.

6. Dead Dove Do Not Eat: Book you would recommend to a select audience with a mountain of caveats

Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell. If you like Victorian novels--especially if you're a fan of Gaskell, and you're okay with some preachiness and repetitive middle and a sad ending, and if you love pro-life themes, there's a lot to love in this book and I definitely recommend it, but part of the reason I love it is that I know there are a lot of people who won't like it, so I need to love it extra.

7. Wasted Potential: Great premise and/or characters but fell down on execution

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley had a premise I was sure to love--a middle-aged woman leaves the farm where she keeps house for her brother, and travels the countryside selling books. Except she didn't do any bookselling, and the previous owner of the wagon was with her the whole time, and it was more about the hijinks that lead to them falling in love. A waste of the premise.

23. Free space--talk about any book you read in 2024 not otherwise covered

I've talked a ton about Lady Audley's Secret, but not as much about the other Braddon novel I've read, Aurora Floyd. I didn't love it as much as Lady Audley's Secret, but I did enjoy a lot about it. It's got a more Austen atmosphere, with a lot of the story taken up with the domestic issues of a pair of cousins who fall in love with a Darcy and Bingley pair of friends, but there's also a nice sensation plot woven in. There's a delightful sailor character at the end who's one of my favorites of the year. A few unnecessary cracks against Catholic ideas and High Church novels that annoyed me, but it was a solid book.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Reading An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge after reading Amelia E. Barr's The Squire of Sandal-Side was an experience.

Both writers have the sort of style that is engaging enough to make reading pleasant, but not so fresh or unique that it really hooks you. Both are writing pastoral period pieces of pre and peri-industrial nostalgia. Both are about English squire families deep in the North of England, and have their main plots spin around an inheritance problem. And yet their approach to the thing is so different!

Barr's story is morally blunt and very simplistic plot wise. Once the conflict of the story is set up, if you know your tropes, you know exactly what the twists are and how and when are they going to happen. The prodigal son metaphor is heavy-handed, in a way that makes it caricaturesque: mother and sister love the heir, but there are no good qualities of his ever presented that justify it. He's a lazy gambler and spendrift, but they will bend over backwards to help him out of trouble and justify him and such. Until he decides to actually settle down and marry and work a bit. Because he chooses an Italian woman. The horror! That's where the family draws the line. That's the unforgivable sin (he isn't even converting to Catholicism himself!). His "watching pigs and coveting their food" moment is his living in Italy with his consumptive wife and son. This stuff would make Charlotte Brontë say "have you considered that maybe you are being too harsh, too rude, exaggerating, even". Don't worry, though! He's not the real heir. The real heir is a good hardworking Anglican, the shades of Sandal-Side will not be polluted by nasty dirty Italian papist blood!

Now, An English Squire has a lot of simple things to it here and there, but it is making a genuine, earnest effort to understand its characters and portray them as realistically as it can. Sometimes these characters hurt each other, and collide, while both trying their best. They are flawed, capable of both generosity and pettiness. It's also unconventionally plotted, and the twists did caught me off-guard more than once. Many sad things happen through the book, and yet the general impression is that of kindness. It is a kind story, a "you catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than a barrel of vinegar" story. And that was so nice?

The premise of the story is also quite unique and interesting:

Over 20 years ago, Gerald Lester, second son of the squire of Oakby, in an act of rebellion, went on an European tour, and while in Spain, fell in love and married a Spanish woman from a wealthy, respectable family, and had a son with her. But then soon enough, both his father and brother died, making him the squire of Oakby. His wife dies while he is away, and his son, Alvar (Álvaro) is taken in by her family. A few years later he remarries, an English woman this time, and has three sons and a daughter by her. All atempts of bringing Alvar to England in his youth, failed; but now that his second son, and favorite, Cheriton, has come of age, things have fallen into place that make it possible, and everyone wonders what will happen when the stranger heir arrives.

As you can imagine, prejudice is a central theme of the story, and for all the pitfalls you can easily guess by reading that summary, the treatment is surprisingly careful and respectful. There was very evident effort put on characterizing Alvar; I may laugh that a boy of his social station would not be just named "Alvar Guzman Lester de la Rosa" but something like "Álvaro Guzmán Luis Enrique José Leopoldo Gerardo Agustín Lester de la Rosa", but for the resources the author probably had at hand, he's plausible. She's even aware of the existence of Carlists!

The relationship between Alvar and Cheriton is the central one; they represent the "opposing" paradigms of the Spanish hidalgo and the English gentleman, but the author refuses the easy way of making them enemies and rivals. On the contrary, so much of the story and their mutual development and at times survival depends on the brotherly love they have for each other. Very often the text will highlight how one character's prejudice against something pertaining to Alvar's person or background is accompanied by blindness towards something very similar in the English culture and ways.

This doesn't mean that the authorial hand is devoid of biases. They are there and pop up notoriously a few times, but I can forgive them because I see awareness and effort in so much of the rest. And the contrast with The Squire of Sandal-Side brought this into even higher relief.

[fictionadventurer]

Potential September Reading

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (ideally in audio)

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

A Sherlock Holmes story (and/or a screen adaptation)

C.S. Lewis nonfiction

A sensation or mystery novel

A piece of one of the Psmith stories

Some kind of nonfiction book

[fictionadventurer]

Books I Started Reading This Year and Still Need to Finish

A Hilltop on the Marne by Mildred Aldrich

The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elizabeth Aimee Brown

Varied Types by G.K. Chesterton

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

The Catholic Controversy by St. Francis de Sales

The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Dream of Kings by Sharon Hinck

Codename Edelweiss by Stephanie Landsem

The Goose Princess by Tricia Mingerink

The Two Marys by Mrs. Oliphant

The Electrical Menagerie by Mollie E. Reeder (reread)

The Realm Beneath, edited by Allison Tebo

The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

Wandering by Loren G. Warnemunde

The Three Brides by Charlotte Mary Yonge

[fictionadventurer]

Potential Victober Reading List

Short List Bare minimum of books to meet every challenge

The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (group read)

No Name by Wilkie Collins (a serialized book, book that plays with form, and a book by Wilkie Collins)

The Warden by Anthony Trollope (a book about religion)

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (Victorian drama)

Longer List If I want separate books for each challenge

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (serialized)

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (plays with form)

A Dark Night's Work by Elizabeth Gaskell (serialized)

Books It Might Be Nice To Finish This Month

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

The Three Brides by Charlotte M. Yonge

Extras Books I Have Around That I Might Be Tempted to Pick Up

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (no way I'll have time for it, but it's such a pretty copy)

The Half-Sisters by Geraldine Jewsbury

On the Back of the North Wind by George Macdonald (I still need to read my copy)

Oscar Wilde's fairy tales (I just bought a copy at a book sale)

Verses on Various Occasions by John Henry Newman (I found it on the free ebook site yesterday, the religion prompt would be a good excuse to finally read Newman, and poetry seems like an easy place to start)

Ellen Middleton by Georgiana Fullerton (Just heard about this in a video this morning, couldn't resist downloading when I heard it praised and learned it was by a Catholic author)

[fictionadventurer]

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (ideally in audio): I got the audiobook halfway through the month, and I'm 80% done. For some reason I just wasn't feeling it and had trouble motivating myself to listen (maybe I had the speed set too high?), but my interest perked up during the scenes at Beorn's house, and the scenes with Smaug yesterday were absolutely gripping. So I think I'm in the mood for fantasy again, and I look forward to finishing.

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge: I read about 30%. I did enjoy it, though some of the anti-Catholicism sapped my motivation for a while. I left off at a very interesting moment (an engagement this early in the book promises a lot of drama) I look forward to finishing. (It'll be a good Victober read).

A Sherlock Holmes story (and/or a screen adaptation): I watched Mr. Holmes, and it was perfect as a background to crafting--relaxing atmosphere, a story slow enough that I don't need to be looking at the screen every second. As a Holmes story, I thought it pretty decent, until they did the "Watson's stories were lies and he never understood Holmes, and now they're estranged" thing. Are there no Holmes-retirement stories that respect Watson and Holmes' friendship?

I also started The Valley of Fear, the only Holmes novel I haven't read yet. I very much enjoyed it and hope to finish soon.

C.S. Lewis nonfiction: I listened to a collection of his writings about different books and the process of writing. I'd heard some of it before, but it was all pretty good.

A sensation or mystery novel: I read Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I still adore her writing style and the characters were great, but the unnecessary moments of anti-Catholicism annoyed me, and her digs at Charlotte Yonge had the effect of making me like Yonge's work more than I had previously.

A piece of one of the Psmith stories: I read a few chapters of Psmith in the City (right after Mike arrives at the bank). A lot of fun.

Some kind of nonfiction book: I finished Pioneer Girl Perspectives and had a ton of fun learning about yellow journalism and the female suffrage and anti-suffrage movements.

Potential September Reading

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (ideally in audio)

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

A Sherlock Holmes story (and/or a screen adaptation)

C.S. Lewis nonfiction

A sensation or mystery novel

A piece of one of the Psmith stories

Some kind of nonfiction book