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ninfadeloslagos 's review for:
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
adventurous
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I am so angry at this book!
I wanted to like it, I wanted to remind myself that is was trying to be quite progressive for its time and that some things just don’t age so well.
But I can’t!
Something good could be made of this book. I actually decided to finally read it because of the song Aurora made for the movie (which I haven’t seen.) That song was so beautiful and perfect it made me want to read the source material, even when I knew it couldn’t be as perfect, because it was written more than a hundred years ago.
Well let me put it this way, this book is the opposite of another Aurora song, “Cure for Me.”
This book argues that there is a cure for disability and non-whiteness and that it is the English country side.
I understand that is not what it is trying to do, it’s trying to say “give children freedom and nature and treat them nicely and they will be happier and healthier for it” but that is not what it achieves.
At the end of the book the garden didn’t feel like a haven of nature and acceptance and shelter, it felt like a representation of colonialism and the mentality that work purifies and disabled people are not worth living.
It broke my heart.
I’m giving it more than one star because I de believe a good adaptation could turn it in its head and achieve that garden, that little sanctuary of otherness that allows wild things to grow protected until they are ready to face the world. I know that story is in here somewhere, it was just lost in all the awfulness.
I wanted to like it, I wanted to remind myself that is was trying to be quite progressive for its time and that some things just don’t age so well.
But I can’t!
Something good could be made of this book. I actually decided to finally read it because of the song Aurora made for the movie (which I haven’t seen.) That song was so beautiful and perfect it made me want to read the source material, even when I knew it couldn’t be as perfect, because it was written more than a hundred years ago.
Well let me put it this way, this book is the opposite of another Aurora song, “Cure for Me.”
This book argues that there is a cure for disability and non-whiteness and that it is the English country side.
I understand that is not what it is trying to do, it’s trying to say “give children freedom and nature and treat them nicely and they will be happier and healthier for it” but that is not what it achieves.
At the end of the book the garden didn’t feel like a haven of nature and acceptance and shelter, it felt like a representation of colonialism and the mentality that work purifies and disabled people are not worth living.
It broke my heart.
I’m giving it more than one star because I de believe a good adaptation could turn it in its head and achieve that garden, that little sanctuary of otherness that allows wild things to grow protected until they are ready to face the world. I know that story is in here somewhere, it was just lost in all the awfulness.