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"Five Children and It": E. Nesbit is very good, but in 2/3 novels of hers I've read (all this year), there have been 1 - 2 scenes of high-key racism. These never feel hateful, but they're so strongly marked I'd still hesitate to hand the book to a child without caveats, and could only make a qualified recommendation. "Five Children" chose to get very weird about Native Americans, and kind of weird about gypsies. Yet for all that, the scene with the gypsy woman Amelia is unexpectedly so sad and touching. Due to a magic wish gone wrong, for a whole day everyone who's seen a group of sibling's youngest member has wanted to possess the child. When the curse is broken, it turns out that only one gypsy woman, Amelia, actually wanted the baby at all, because she’d lost all of her own. Earlier the children thought about using a wish to lastingly bless the baby, but because the wishes expire at sunset, they couldn't do it. Amelia can extend her blessing, and does.
Me: I’m also almost done with "Five Children and It", which is fun but almost entirely about missing lunch; fears of missing lunch; how to avoid missing lunch. It’s not even WWI yet, and E Nesbit has seen a bleak and lunchless rationed future.
Jade: Oh, is it the prequel to Five Guys? Is that why they made a restaurant? That makes a lot of sense. Cool concept.
Me: Mm, exactly Jade. They solve the lunch problem in the future. ‘Oh sand fairy, we wish for that megatherium at last, and we shall make burgers of it.’
One thing I'd say about this is, the try-fail cycle gets a little shapeless in overall structural terms. I don't know that Nesbit is a very arc-conscious writer. Plot happenings in her books can feel somewhat incidental/occasional.
Little Lord Fauntleroy: This book is much better than the cultural idea of the concept would ever lead you to expect. It is gooey, but it's very earnest and frank about it. I think it might owe some of its energy to Dickens, there are passages that feel a bit reminiscent of the young David Copperfield to me.
What's striking, then, is the intensity of the Victorian/Edwardian Infant Phenomenon child-worship vibe. The intense focus on the central character does register as an adult gaze, and can feel almost erotic in its intensity and physicality. Nothing untoward is ever said or done and no locus beyond the reforming grandfather is ever assigned to this attraction, but it's palpable throughout--it's the materiality of the book. Everyone looks at Cedric like Shen Yuan thinks everyone looks at Luo Binghe. And in a way it makes sense that we never see Cedric after he turns eight: any possible maturation would betray the promise of potentiality, the very fact of 'precocity' can't be interminably sustained.
Me: I’m also almost done with "Five Children and It", which is fun but almost entirely about missing lunch; fears of missing lunch; how to avoid missing lunch. It’s not even WWI yet, and E Nesbit has seen a bleak and lunchless rationed future.
Jade: Oh, is it the prequel to Five Guys? Is that why they made a restaurant? That makes a lot of sense. Cool concept.
Me: Mm, exactly Jade. They solve the lunch problem in the future. ‘Oh sand fairy, we wish for that megatherium at last, and we shall make burgers of it.’
One thing I'd say about this is, the try-fail cycle gets a little shapeless in overall structural terms. I don't know that Nesbit is a very arc-conscious writer. Plot happenings in her books can feel somewhat incidental/occasional.
Little Lord Fauntleroy: This book is much better than the cultural idea of the concept would ever lead you to expect. It is gooey, but it's very earnest and frank about it. I think it might owe some of its energy to Dickens, there are passages that feel a bit reminiscent of the young David Copperfield to me.
What's striking, then, is the intensity of the Victorian/Edwardian Infant Phenomenon child-worship vibe. The intense focus on the central character does register as an adult gaze, and can feel almost erotic in its intensity and physicality. Nothing untoward is ever said or done and no locus beyond the reforming grandfather is ever assigned to this attraction, but it's palpable throughout--it's the materiality of the book. Everyone looks at Cedric like Shen Yuan thinks everyone looks at Luo Binghe. And in a way it makes sense that we never see Cedric after he turns eight: any possible maturation would betray the promise of potentiality, the very fact of 'precocity' can't be interminably sustained.
