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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
https://wordnerdy.blogspot.com/2019/10/2019-book-131.html
The only book I’ve read by Tey is the one where the bedridden guy is reading about Richard III, but I saw someone mention this and it looked interesting, so I figured I’d give it a go. It’s about a young man who poses as the long lost heir to a horse breeding family (it's England). But what happened to the little boy he's pretending to be? And will he be found out??? This was a solid story, and while it’s not too hard to solve the mystery parts, the satisfaction is seeing how everything comes together. I enjoyed this a lot, a classic sort of British mystery. A-.
The only book I’ve read by Tey is the one where the bedridden guy is reading about Richard III, but I saw someone mention this and it looked interesting, so I figured I’d give it a go. It’s about a young man who poses as the long lost heir to a horse breeding family (it's England). But what happened to the little boy he's pretending to be? And will he be found out??? This was a solid story, and while it’s not too hard to solve the mystery parts, the satisfaction is seeing how everything comes together. I enjoyed this a lot, a classic sort of British mystery. A-.
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide, Murder
This book was seriously funny where it was funny - and seriously well done where it was, occasionally, well done (mostly in the psyche of the main character, who I managed to like in spite of increasing annoyance) - but nothing that caused me to hate the author this much gets more than two stars. First, I will say that Hirondelle's review here is right on the money: this is one of those obnoxious tooth-rotting books from the early 20th century when the British upper class was starting to lose their grip on, well, everything, and they started writing these precious paeans to green English soil.
To be honest, I'm getting extremely sick of those. I have a hard time believing an island exists on this planet that deserves the sort of convoluted mythologizing these things give them. I feel like incorporating your hometown this deeply into your identity is a massive sign of shallowness, never mind your nation. But anyway...
No, the main thing that bothered me about the story is that it was dumb as a post. It's an intrinsically gripping premise. I was turning a lot of pages, even when I had to turn them past blah blah blah small cozy town overexplanation Latchetts ('Latchetts' is an intrinsically unpleasant word, am I the only one who thinks so? It makes a buglike clacking sound), because the idea is interesting.
But frankly I ended up liking the beginning - Loding's scheme with Brat (Loding! Man, you poor maligned queen deserved better) and Brat's backstory in America - better than any of the rest, as it was the only thing the writer applied herself to particularly.
... Honestly, my biggest suspension of disbelief at any point though was that roaming horse fiend Brat had a great hankering to go back to the UK after so many years working on beautiful ranches in the West. I know the book tries incredibly hard to sell the idea there's something special and unique about English horses and English-style riding, but 1. even if there is, this character would have absolutely no appreciation for that, and 2. come on, nobody who likes their own company, lots of spaces, and horses is going to be like "fuck California, I think the mother fucking UK of all things has lots of great places to ride a horse." As an American I generally try to avoid assuming the perks of my country are as unique as our whole cultural machine promotes, but you really cannot replace the US with the UK when it comes to space and landscape. It is why they sent those people to steal and occupy this land in the first place. But anyway--
... the mystery was stupid! It was the dumbest thing ever. There wasn't even a mystery to speak of--once Brat was like, wait, what if evil Simon really is evil?, the rest of the plot was foretold at an annoying pace. Also not a fan of long drops that conveniently kill villains and not heroes in general. You both survive that drop or you both die. Don't be a candyass.
I'm not going to get into the psychological verisimilitude issues when it comes to things like, uh, people's reaction to being incest-catfished, but I must write down for posterity the thing that was enjoyable and aggravating the most: this was an excruciatingly sexless book, which is saying something for something that has incest catfishing, all except for how much Brat wanted to fuck his new evil brother Simon.
I really mean it. I really have not read unintentional homoerotic sizzle on this level in a long time. I've actually read a lot of watery progressive queer romance-type things that were less convincingly gay than Brat Farrar's burning, violent attraction to his cold, beautiful, manipulative, mincing bad seed twin nemesis Simon Ashby. I think my favorite was whenever he took Simon's favorite murder horse out--Timber!--and described this horse in peculiar terms that made it sound like he wanted to fuck the horse, and then was like, "This horse... it's like Simon. Simon. He's like this beautiful, deadly, untamed sexy horse. I, uh, hate him."
You see, Timber is a murder horse, with murder in his horse backstory. In this same way, Simon is a murder twink, with murder in his twink backstory. I'm sad for both of them that Brat just could not enact his plans for Timber upon Simon, ie take him out every day to break him gradually of his murderous tendencies.
He's pretty hot for Simon all the time, horse or no horse - anytime it's like "Simon is fluid! Fey! Beautiful and changeable and cold! Mocking!" whereas poor catfished incest Eleanor gets like 0 descriptors apart from "Eleanor was ladylike and inoffensive," RIP - but it definitely comes to a head where evil brother and horse metaphor collide:
He's not really your brother! It's okay to take him over your knee with your new, expensive English riding crop that now has a significantly bigger fetish market than riding market and ruin those undoubtedly also expensive jodhpurs. You don't have to tumble disappointingly off the selective hero-villain-separating cliff together.
It's possible this sounds like I'm strictly making fun of the book now. I am also making fun of the book. But I'm seriously considering requesting and/or writing this for Yuletide. No one should have to lustfully compare someone to a horse that much in vain.
I'm going to leave this on some wisdom from Loding, who is admitted to be gay, and deserves better in all things in life:
Ain't that the truth. Anyway, the Lodings of the world are the protagonists of my heart. Just like Simon Ashby is going to be the protagonist of an AO3 upload sometime this year.
I'm question and glory. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To be honest, I'm getting extremely sick of those. I have a hard time believing an island exists on this planet that deserves the sort of convoluted mythologizing these things give them. I feel like incorporating your hometown this deeply into your identity is a massive sign of shallowness, never mind your nation. But anyway...
Spoiler
That's actually not the main thing that disappointed me about the story, although it certainly elicited some eyerolls. Shallow really is the right word - this is one of those things where everything turns out to be exactly what it looks like at the beginning. If someone looks like the wrong kind of person, they will be the wrong kind of person - a silly girl, a mincing sleaze, whatever. Probably because in pastoral nostalgia-land, you can identify everything and its proper place at first sight. Which is fairly impressive for something about a con artist.No, the main thing that bothered me about the story is that it was dumb as a post. It's an intrinsically gripping premise. I was turning a lot of pages, even when I had to turn them past blah blah blah small cozy town overexplanation Latchetts ('Latchetts' is an intrinsically unpleasant word, am I the only one who thinks so? It makes a buglike clacking sound), because the idea is interesting.
But frankly I ended up liking the beginning - Loding's scheme with Brat (Loding! Man, you poor maligned queen deserved better) and Brat's backstory in America - better than any of the rest, as it was the only thing the writer applied herself to particularly.
... Honestly, my biggest suspension of disbelief at any point though was that roaming horse fiend Brat had a great hankering to go back to the UK after so many years working on beautiful ranches in the West. I know the book tries incredibly hard to sell the idea there's something special and unique about English horses and English-style riding, but 1. even if there is, this character would have absolutely no appreciation for that, and 2. come on, nobody who likes their own company, lots of spaces, and horses is going to be like "fuck California, I think the mother fucking UK of all things has lots of great places to ride a horse." As an American I generally try to avoid assuming the perks of my country are as unique as our whole cultural machine promotes, but you really cannot replace the US with the UK when it comes to space and landscape. It is why they sent those people to steal and occupy this land in the first place. But anyway--
... the mystery was stupid! It was the dumbest thing ever. There wasn't even a mystery to speak of--once Brat was like, wait, what if evil Simon really is evil?, the rest of the plot was foretold at an annoying pace. Also not a fan of long drops that conveniently kill villains and not heroes in general. You both survive that drop or you both die. Don't be a candyass.
I'm not going to get into the psychological verisimilitude issues when it comes to things like, uh, people's reaction to being incest-catfished, but I must write down for posterity the thing that was enjoyable and aggravating the most: this was an excruciatingly sexless book, which is saying something for something that has incest catfishing, all except for how much Brat wanted to fuck his new evil brother Simon.
I really mean it. I really have not read unintentional homoerotic sizzle on this level in a long time. I've actually read a lot of watery progressive queer romance-type things that were less convincingly gay than Brat Farrar's burning, violent attraction to his cold, beautiful, manipulative, mincing bad seed twin nemesis Simon Ashby. I think my favorite was whenever he took Simon's favorite murder horse out--Timber!--and described this horse in peculiar terms that made it sound like he wanted to fuck the horse, and then was like, "This horse... it's like Simon. Simon. He's like this beautiful, deadly, untamed sexy horse. I, uh, hate him."
But Timber was something else again. Timber was challenge, and excitement, and satisfaction; Timber was question and glory.
You see, Timber is a murder horse, with murder in his horse backstory. In this same way, Simon is a murder twink, with murder in his twink backstory. I'm sad for both of them that Brat just could not enact his plans for Timber upon Simon, ie take him out every day to break him gradually of his murderous tendencies.
He's pretty hot for Simon all the time, horse or no horse - anytime it's like "Simon is fluid! Fey! Beautiful and changeable and cold! Mocking!" whereas poor catfished incest Eleanor gets like 0 descriptors apart from "Eleanor was ladylike and inoffensive," RIP - but it definitely comes to a head where evil brother and horse metaphor collide:
Brat, with most whole-hearted respect, watched Simon's body swing with the black horse's rise and fall as though he were part of it. It was right that Simon should ride it. He would never attain that perfection if he lived to be a hundred. A great silence settled on the crowd as one by one the jumps fled away behind Timber. It would be monstrous if this beauty were to fail or be faulted.
He's not really your brother! It's okay to take him over your knee with your new, expensive English riding crop that now has a significantly bigger fetish market than riding market and ruin those undoubtedly also expensive jodhpurs. You don't have to tumble disappointingly off the selective hero-villain-separating cliff together.
It's possible this sounds like I'm strictly making fun of the book now. I am also making fun of the book. But I'm seriously considering requesting and/or writing this for Yuletide. No one should have to lustfully compare someone to a horse that much in vain.
I'm going to leave this on some wisdom from Loding, who is admitted to be gay, and deserves better in all things in life:
"I don't want any lump sum," Loding had said. "I should only blue it, in the first place. And in the second place, it would cause a shocking amount of heart-searching at the bank. We don't want any heart-searching once you're in the saddle. All I want is a cosy little weekly allowance for the rest of my life, so that I can thumb my nose at Equity, and managements, and producers who say that I'm always late for rehearsals. And landladies. Riches, my boy, don't consist in having things, but in not having to do something you don't want to do. And don't you forget it. Riches is being able to thumb your nose."
Ain't that the truth. Anyway, the Lodings of the world are the protagonists of my heart. Just like Simon Ashby is going to be the protagonist of an AO3 upload sometime this year.
I'm question and glory. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Fiction, Vintage, Mystery)
The three best known and lauded books by author Josephine Tey appear to be Daughter of Time, The Franchise Affair (both in the Alan Grant series), and Brat Farrar. The last of these, a stand-alone novel, was my favourite book in April 2014.
Brat Farrar poses as Patrick Ashby, the heir to his family’s fortune, who disappeared when he was 12 and was thought to have drowned himself. Brat had been coached in Patrick’s mannerisms and childhood by a school friend who had grown up with the Ashbys.
Although you will probably figure out the fly in the ointment early on, as I did, you will not be prevented from feeling the suspense build as the story works its way toward its climax. 4 stars
The three best known and lauded books by author Josephine Tey appear to be Daughter of Time, The Franchise Affair (both in the Alan Grant series), and Brat Farrar. The last of these, a stand-alone novel, was my favourite book in April 2014.
Brat Farrar poses as Patrick Ashby, the heir to his family’s fortune, who disappeared when he was 12 and was thought to have drowned himself. Brat had been coached in Patrick’s mannerisms and childhood by a school friend who had grown up with the Ashbys.
Although you will probably figure out the fly in the ointment early on, as I did, you will not be prevented from feeling the suspense build as the story works its way toward its climax. 4 stars
Compelling and at time anxiety provoking; Tey really managed to suck me in with this one. I wanted to dislike Brat for his wrongdoings, but it was almost impossible not to start to sympathize with him as the book went on. I was so worried about how it was all going to turn out, I had to force myself to put it down halfway through last night so I could sleep untroubled.
Tey managed to provide a surprisingly satisfying ending, wrapping things up much more neatly than I could have imagined.
There's something that comes through Tey's books that gives me the feeling that I would not have liked her very much if we could have ever met, but it's undeniable that she produced some of the more interesting mysteries of her time.
Tey managed to provide a surprisingly satisfying ending, wrapping things up much more neatly than I could have imagined.
There's something that comes through Tey's books that gives me the feeling that I would not have liked her very much if we could have ever met, but it's undeniable that she produced some of the more interesting mysteries of her time.
Wonderful story telling, very touching. I also enjoyed reading this book of the month discussion afterwards. It made me appreciate the story even more.
Like all Josephine Tey's books, it's brilliantly written and plotted. It's really quite a hoary old traditional country house story (that's not really a spoiler). But she doesn't make it feel like that. Her prejudices aren't quite as on show as usual, other than blatant snobbery and horrible use of language to indicate stupidity. I still loved it.
An easy read, decent mystery with well defined characters, too bad I’m not a horsey person :)
2.5 stars
2.5 stars
How delightful! This is an english mystery with deep characters, in the manner of Agatha Christie's The Hollow, where the mystery is besides the point. I'd love to find other work by her to try.
I thought this was an interesting book. It would be great to analyze or write a school paper about, but as entertainment, I found it a little slow. Interesting concepts and morals to think about.