A review by robinwalter
The Lark by E. Nesbit

funny lighthearted relaxing
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The Lark  was an interesting read for me. I laughed a lot, and the overall tone of the book was sweet and positive and bright. It was very refreshing after the mentally taxing mysteries. I'd been working through before it. Nevertheless, there was something unusual about the experience of reading  The Lark. The character who made me laugh the most was the one I liked the least.

From the beginning of the story I did not like Jane at all,  and I found that as the story progressed that feeling grew stronger and stronger. For the middle third of the book I assumed that perhaps I might get to like her character more over time, but by the time I was past three quarters of the way through the book, I found her getting less and less likeable.

Right from the beginning she struck me as a very self-centred person. She was often depicted as doing kind things for other people, but I never got the impression that she was particularly interested in them.  Throughout the whole book I got the impression that the person who mattered most to her was her.

True to her guiding credo in life, the one the book is named after, whatever she did, whether apparently benevolent or otherwise, was all for the same reason - because it's a lark.

One of the questions the review template at The StoryGraph asks is "Is there strong character development?" and I selected "it's complicated". This is because I would answer Yes for Miss Antrobus, somewhat for Lucilla, and "Hell no!" for Jane. For that reason my  likeability  ratings would be Miss Antrobus, then Lucilla and then finally Jane. Jane was the person who always made trouble for other people and acted without any consideration  of  (or worse,regard for)  the consequences of her actions for other people and that's why I ended up actively disliking her.

After all of that, it is a tribute to Ms Nesbit's writing that she was able to make me enjoy the story despite building it around a character who I most emphatically disliked. In large part that was because of the sheer skill of the writing. A selection of just few of my favourite examples:

the young man returned with the mouldering relics of a landau, drawn by something which must once, as he said, have been a horse

“Certainly not,” said Jane, with an almost convulsive but successful clutch at her self-possession.

Then we go out gallivanting—become mere pleasure-seekers—and at once we fly at each other’s throats like sharks or alligators. Influence of dissipation.”
“That wasn’t dissipation; it was the young man.”
“It always is, I believe,”


You know how I hate tact . . .”
“Yes,” said Lucilla, with emphasis.


Is it t common sense that says you must always wear a hat in church except when you’re being confirmed?”
“No, dear, that’s religion,” said Lucilla


These illustrate why this book was such  a joy to read  - a careful use of language and a keen sense of how to make words funny with a delicate precision that is not so common today. Even the three-page rant about the decay and corruption of the English language was amusing, because I wasn't quite sure whether Ms Nesbit herself shared that view or  was poking fun at it  - again that uncertainty was a mark of good writing. In conclusion, I'm happy that I read this book, and I definitely enjoyed the laughs, but I this will be my first and last Nesbit.