#whichart

[tiny-saturn-kitty]

Got a set of micron makers and im testing them out. I love them💕 #lineart #traditionalart #drawing #blackandwhite #witch #whichart #hidrangea #hidrangeaflowers #women #woman #markerart #marker https://www.instagram.com/p/BsMaibcHcRY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1urpmftk7hsc3

[kivrin]

Noel Streatfeild’s First Novel

The other night I needed a palate cleanser from... life... and so I searched “Noel Streatfeild” on Twitter, and found out about a couple new/forthcoming novels blurbed as “if you liked NS you’ll enjoy this” and also that since the last time I checked (2012, apparently) a bunch of her novels for grownups have been republished in ebook.

So I bought The Whicharts (1931).  I knew it was a sort of first draft of her first and most famous children’s book Ballet Shoes (1936) but I was not prepared for whole segments of narrative scene-setting to literally appear in both. It’s definitely grittier but honestly I find the conceit of a discarded mistress taking in her ex-lover’s subsequent partner’s illegitimate child... and the child of the next lover... and the child of the NEXT lover... just as fantastical as a globetrotting paleontologist who collects orphans.

It made me reflect on the near-total absence of romance in Streatfeild’s more famous books. The emotional hearts of her books are always vocation (often performance-related), family (frequently found), and friendship.