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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
It's got potential, and there are some moments of deftly told physical humor, but the plot is vaguely presented, few of the characters are loveable(I only cared about Jed), classism runs rampant, and there was a whole page about a man "prov[ing] his manhood" that knocked it down an entire star*. That's a decided no. Especially in this story and in context.
*I'm all for a good barn raising dance in 7B47B style but this was not that charming.
*I'm all for a good barn raising dance in 7B47B style but this was not that charming.
I had never heard of Molly Clavering but thanks to Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press reprinting many vintage titles, this made it onto my Kindle. And I'm glad it did. Clavering was a friend of D. E. Stevenson and this title has quite a bit of the charm and style I love from Stevenson. The Scots dialect can be a bit tiresome at times, but it does add flavor.
As for the characters, well Susan is lovely. Oliver is over the top in all the best ways. And the rest of the cast...they're enjoyable right down to the pint size members of the manse household. (The kid trio is referred to as 'The Infantry' which is perfect.)
As for the characters, well Susan is lovely. Oliver is over the top in all the best ways. And the rest of the cast...they're enjoyable right down to the pint size members of the manse household. (The kid trio is referred to as 'The Infantry' which is perfect.)
Originally published in 1936, Susan Settles Down is the first Molly Clavering book I’ve read. From the start I knew that I was going to get on well with this book. Molly Clavering’s writing has an effortless style that draws you in and allows you to just sit back and enjoy the experience.
Susan Parsons moves from London with her brother Oliver to a property he has inherited in the Scottish Highlands. While eager to support her brother’s excitement of being a landowner, Susan is less than optimistic about how they will get on in Easter Hartrigg. Met with a drunken cook and her useless daughter upon arrival at their new homestead, Susan has to take the situation in hand as soon as she’s through the door. But soon she’s befriending the daughter of the local vicar, cleaning house, and despite their very rocky start, she begins to almost like her brother’s new friend, Jed Armstrong, a farmer whose property abuts theirs. Not all the neighbours are friendly, though. The three Pringle sisters provide hilarity and frustration, as do the misunderstandings and romances.
I had a great time reading this book. It was funny, easy to digest, and charming. My only qualm is that I read in the introduction of the Dean Street Press edition that Susan is a writer. I kept waiting for this information to be imparted in the book. It wasn’t until about the half way point that Susan’s writing is mentioned and while I understand that looking after her brother’s home has been her main priority up until that point, it seemed very odd that it wasn’t at least mentioned earlier. If I hadn’t gone into the book knowing that Susan was a writer, perhaps this wouldn’t have bothered me. Of course, the fact that it isn’t mentioned earlier could be an indication of how serious Susan is about her profession.
The only reason I’m giving this 4.5 stars and not 5 is because I wanted a bit more at the end. Clearly, that’s preferable to being left wanting less! I’m very much looking forward to reading [b:Touch Not the Nettle|57455009|Touch Not the Nettle|Molly Clavering|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1616112244l/57455009._SY75_.jpg|89958637] which carries on Susan’s story. Who knows? Maybe I will find what I was looking for at the end of Susan Settles Down in that book!
Susan Parsons moves from London with her brother Oliver to a property he has inherited in the Scottish Highlands. While eager to support her brother’s excitement of being a landowner, Susan is less than optimistic about how they will get on in Easter Hartrigg. Met with a drunken cook and her useless daughter upon arrival at their new homestead, Susan has to take the situation in hand as soon as she’s through the door. But soon she’s befriending the daughter of the local vicar, cleaning house, and despite their very rocky start, she begins to almost like her brother’s new friend, Jed Armstrong, a farmer whose property abuts theirs. Not all the neighbours are friendly, though. The three Pringle sisters provide hilarity and frustration, as do the misunderstandings and romances.
I had a great time reading this book. It was funny, easy to digest, and charming. My only qualm is that I read in the introduction of the Dean Street Press edition that Susan is a writer. I kept waiting for this information to be imparted in the book. It wasn’t until about the half way point that Susan’s writing is mentioned and while I understand that looking after her brother’s home has been her main priority up until that point, it seemed very odd that it wasn’t at least mentioned earlier. If I hadn’t gone into the book knowing that Susan was a writer, perhaps this wouldn’t have bothered me. Of course, the fact that it isn’t mentioned earlier could be an indication of how serious Susan is about her profession.
The only reason I’m giving this 4.5 stars and not 5 is because I wanted a bit more at the end. Clearly, that’s preferable to being left wanting less! I’m very much looking forward to reading [b:Touch Not the Nettle|57455009|Touch Not the Nettle|Molly Clavering|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1616112244l/57455009._SY75_.jpg|89958637] which carries on Susan’s story. Who knows? Maybe I will find what I was looking for at the end of Susan Settles Down in that book!
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
For fans of DE Stevenson, Elizabeth Fair, and Angela Thirkell.
This was so enjoyable and full of characters that you will be rooting for. Lots of charm, funny quips, and also beautiful descriptions.
Brother and sister duo Oliver and Susan Parsons have come to live in the Borders of Scotland. Though neither of them is really used to the rural life, they settle in surprisingly well... but they each carry a bit of emotional baggage with them that complicates their social lives in the village.
For Oliver, it's resentment any time anyone pities him for his injured leg. Combine that touchiness with a tendency to always pair off with the shallowest of girls, and it's no wonder his sister sighs over the question of whether he will ever get together with the girl who is just right for him.
For Susan, it's a broken heart from an unhappy romance years ago. She's settled into spinster life, she can make her own money, and she's more than happy to live with Oliver and keep house... but Scotland has a few surprises in store for her. Starting with the neighbor, Jed Armstrong, who always seems to catch her at her most irritable.
This novel is a tale of friendship and of finding love and a sense of home where you least expected.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the new reprinted editions of Molly Clavering's books!
*Note, the proofreading on these isn't perfect. Use of OCR leads to some typos, but not too many.
This was so enjoyable and full of characters that you will be rooting for. Lots of charm, funny quips, and also beautiful descriptions.
Brother and sister duo Oliver and Susan Parsons have come to live in the Borders of Scotland. Though neither of them is really used to the rural life, they settle in surprisingly well... but they each carry a bit of emotional baggage with them that complicates their social lives in the village.
For Oliver, it's resentment any time anyone pities him for his injured leg. Combine that touchiness with a tendency to always pair off with the shallowest of girls, and it's no wonder his sister sighs over the question of whether he will ever get together with the girl who is just right for him.
For Susan, it's a broken heart from an unhappy romance years ago. She's settled into spinster life, she can make her own money, and she's more than happy to live with Oliver and keep house... but Scotland has a few surprises in store for her. Starting with the neighbor, Jed Armstrong, who always seems to catch her at her most irritable.
This novel is a tale of friendship and of finding love and a sense of home where you least expected.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the new reprinted editions of Molly Clavering's books!
*Note, the proofreading on these isn't perfect. Use of OCR leads to some typos, but not too many.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The last week of my Dean Street December turned out to be heavily focused on Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing
Rule 4 states. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
In Brian Flynn's Such Bright Disguises instances where that rule was not breached were less commonly seen than are unicorns, in the process making me a convert to Leonard's dogma
Rule 5 is
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
If Francis Vivian was getting paid per exclamation mark for Dead Opposite the Church, that would explain why it was his last novel, as he would have earned enough to buy Bermuda.
Both of those books pushed me towards Leonard's view but Susan Settles Down came very close to being dropped for flouting the only one of Leonard's rules I had already long considered inviolable
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
The first third of this book was an eye-glazing mass of Scots.
Scots is very much its own language, with a long history and a literary heritage to be justly proud of. But having so many characters speaking in it so often and at such length was tiring and tiresome. Especially as Ms Clavering did 'translate' an affected lisp later, which reeked of authorial hypocrisy to me.
The sheer tedium of trying to decipher dialogue in a language I don't speak saw me skim the first half of the book at high speed. Identifying the characters as Lowland Scots could have been done with a few phrases, while translating the rest into an English variant more widely used. Gerald Hammond did this decades later, with a series set in the same general area, but with characters whose Lowland/Borders Scottish identity was not megaphoned by having their Scots dialogue untranslated.
Happily, like Susan herself, the book settled down, and the story became an entertaining read. The very foreignness of Scots was itself used to great effect in one of the funniest passages in the book, where a very English character recites a poem he wrote in Scots. It made me laugh and showed how following Rule 7 could have improved the book.
The last half of the story was sweet and fun, with sufficient sadness to keep it grounded. The ending was never in doubt, which is good thing as it's the reason for reading books like this. If her other works feature more of an English variant I'm conversant with, this may not have been my first and last Clavering.
Rule 4 states. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
In Brian Flynn's Such Bright Disguises instances where that rule was not breached were less commonly seen than are unicorns, in the process making me a convert to Leonard's dogma
Rule 5 is
Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
If Francis Vivian was getting paid per exclamation mark for Dead Opposite the Church, that would explain why it was his last novel, as he would have earned enough to buy Bermuda.
Both of those books pushed me towards Leonard's view but Susan Settles Down came very close to being dropped for flouting the only one of Leonard's rules I had already long considered inviolable
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
The first third of this book was an eye-glazing mass of Scots.
Scots is very much its own language, with a long history and a literary heritage to be justly proud of. But having so many characters speaking in it so often and at such length was tiring and tiresome. Especially as Ms Clavering did 'translate' an affected lisp later, which reeked of authorial hypocrisy to me.
The sheer tedium of trying to decipher dialogue in a language I don't speak saw me skim the first half of the book at high speed. Identifying the characters as Lowland Scots could have been done with a few phrases, while translating the rest into an English variant more widely used. Gerald Hammond did this decades later, with a series set in the same general area, but with characters whose Lowland/Borders Scottish identity was not megaphoned by having their Scots dialogue untranslated.
Happily, like Susan herself, the book settled down, and the story became an entertaining read. The very foreignness of Scots was itself used to great effect in one of the funniest passages in the book, where a very English character recites a poem he wrote in Scots. It made me laugh and showed how following Rule 7 could have improved the book.
The last half of the story was sweet and fun, with sufficient sadness to keep it grounded. The ending was never in doubt, which is good thing as it's the reason for reading books like this. If her other works feature more of an English variant I'm conversant with, this may not have been my first and last Clavering.
slow-paced
Began well enough, but petered out about a third of the way. Much prefer D.E. Stevenson (Amberwell; Shoulder the Sky) for this kind of love & landscape novel.
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced