Take a photo of a barcode or cover
stefhyena 's review for:
The Little White Horse
by Elizabeth Goudge
I'm surprised this has had such good reviews. It has practically no plot and is an extended sermon "goodness" in a very conservative vein including classist and sexist narratives and something that is not fully developed racism but hints at it. It romanticises the church and clergy passing judgement on others (including curious or wilful "females"). Hating women is seen as a loveable trait of gentlemen.
There's a persistent binarism- sun/moon, male/female, lion/unicorn (yes that's in the book too).
At first I thought Maria (the heroine) was going to be portrayed as not beautiful but the point of that turns out to be her good deeds and unselfishness make her beautiful.
There's a lot of detail of wondrous rooms and interiors, lavish meals and beautiful nature. The colour black is demonised in a paragraph hilariously reminiscent of my grandmother seriously telling me black is the devil's colour. This is probably relevant for the 1940s when the book was written, my question is why someone saw fit to reprint it in 2000 or beyond.
The worst part was Robin angrily demanding that Maria marries him. He's unable to control his temper because he says he has "a roaring lion inside him" (p 147) but as soon as she agrees to his demand he calms down abruptly. That seems (in a kids book) to be normalising domestic violence as "romantic". He never gets angry again in the book but she never does anything to thwart him and takes great care of his feelings and dignity after that.
All in all, the ideology was stronger than either the world-building or certainly the insipid plot. The cover contains warm recommendations from J K Rowling.
There's a persistent binarism- sun/moon, male/female, lion/unicorn (yes that's in the book too).
At first I thought Maria (the heroine) was going to be portrayed as not beautiful but the point of that turns out to be her good deeds and unselfishness make her beautiful.
There's a lot of detail of wondrous rooms and interiors, lavish meals and beautiful nature. The colour black is demonised in a paragraph hilariously reminiscent of my grandmother seriously telling me black is the devil's colour. This is probably relevant for the 1940s when the book was written, my question is why someone saw fit to reprint it in 2000 or beyond.
The worst part was Robin angrily demanding that Maria marries him. He's unable to control his temper because he says he has "a roaring lion inside him" (p 147) but as soon as she agrees to his demand he calms down abruptly. That seems (in a kids book) to be normalising domestic violence as "romantic". He never gets angry again in the book but she never does anything to thwart him and takes great care of his feelings and dignity after that.
All in all, the ideology was stronger than either the world-building or certainly the insipid plot. The cover contains warm recommendations from J K Rowling.