Scan barcode
A review by ireney5
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
2.0
*2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge*
Prompt #28: A book recommended by a celebrity you admire (Anne Hathaway)
Phew, I might be in Korea at the moment but that let me cheat a little on this challenge because I did finished it on December 31st... if we're going by American time. Which I'm going to assume is fair because that's the time zone where I started this challenge.
Anyway, this book was charming but the two major problems I had with it were:
1. The excessive happiness in the entire last third of the book. Every page was filled with the wonder of the garden and the children and how absolutely happy they were. That gets old real fast. I don't really think of myself as a cynic, but I had to skim through the last few chapters.
2. The racism. I know this was published in a different time but I felt so uncomfortable reading certain passages, such as the following:
These quotes are spoken by a variety of characters but mostly Mary, the spoiled protagonist (being spoiled doesn't excuse thinking of only Indian servants as non-human. She instinctively knows to not treat her English servants the same way) and Martha, her kind and good-natured maid. Again, I know that this was socially acceptable back in the day, but that doesn't mean I don't feel extremely uncomfortable reading how they talked about Indian people when I'm reading the book today.
Prompt #28: A book recommended by a celebrity you admire (Anne Hathaway)
Phew, I might be in Korea at the moment but that let me cheat a little on this challenge because I did finished it on December 31st... if we're going by American time. Which I'm going to assume is fair because that's the time zone where I started this challenge.
Anyway, this book was charming but the two major problems I had with it were:
1. The excessive happiness in the entire last third of the book. Every page was filled with the wonder of the garden and the children and how absolutely happy they were. That gets old real fast. I don't really think of myself as a cynic, but I had to skim through the last few chapters.
2. The racism. I know this was published in a different time but I felt so uncomfortable reading certain passages, such as the following:
"Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native servants she had been used to in India were not in the least like this. They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if they were their equals[...] Indian servants were commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say "please" and "thank you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the face when she was angry." (18%)
"I dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people." (19%)
"You don't know anything about natives! They are not people - they're servants who must salaam to you. You know nothing about India." (19%)
"Does tha' mean they've not got skipppin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and camels! No wonder most of 'em's black."(31%)
These quotes are spoken by a variety of characters but mostly Mary, the spoiled protagonist (being spoiled doesn't excuse thinking of only Indian servants as non-human. She instinctively knows to not treat her English servants the same way) and Martha, her kind and good-natured maid. Again, I know that this was socially acceptable back in the day, but that doesn't mean I don't feel extremely uncomfortable reading how they talked about Indian people when I'm reading the book today.