Love Insurance

I was in the mood for something light and funny the other day, so I went to see what the internet had to offer in the way of non-Charlie Chan novels by Earl Derr Biggers. I found Love Insurance, which was exactly what I was looking for, except in that it didn’t really thrill me in any way.

The premise is kind of excellent, to a point, and if the book had revolved around Owen Jephson, underwriter for Lloyd’s of London, I think I would have liked it more. Jephson specializes in insuring incedibly peculiar things: he’s insured an actor against losing weight, a duchess against rain at her garden party, etc. I want very badly for Herbert George Jenkins to have written a book about Jephson, but sadly the world doesn’t work that way. And Biggers is more concerned first with Allan, Lord Harrowby, who wants to insure his wedding date, and then, more centrally, with Dick Minot, who Lloyd’s sends to Florida and protect their assets by making sure that Harrowby’s wedding to the beautiful Cynthia Meyrick goes as planned. Minot, inevitably, falls in love with Cynthia almost at first sight, and that’s only the first of many complications — there are jewel thieves, long-lost relatives, blackmail, and a society matron who hires a guy to write bon mots for her. And that list barely scrapes the surface.

The Strange Woman

Usually a novelization of a play retains a fair amount of the original structure. The author of the novel may add in new locations and stuff, but you can still tell that, say, one particular group of chapters used to be the second act and originally took place entirely on someone’s front porch, or that one lengthy bit of narration used to be a monologue, or something. The Strange Woman, adapted by Mary McNeil Fenollosa (writing as Sidney McCall) from a play by William Hurlbut, puzzled me because I couldn’t see the underlying structure of the play, and none of it seemed like it had come from a play — until more than halfway through the book, when John Hemingway returns from Paris with his fiancée. Or his sort of fiancée.

Parnassus on Wheels

Parnassus on Wheels, by Christopher Morley, is probably everything it should be, but I’m still a little bit more delighted by the premise than by the book itself. The premise is this: Helen and Andrew McGill are siblings who combined their resources to buy a farm. Andrew learned to farm, Helen learned to cook and housekeep, and they did pretty well for themselves until Andrew wrote a bestselling book and began to take his own hype too seriously. He started going off on walking tours and things, leaving Helen to run the farm on her own, and she, not unreasonably, got increasingly frustrated with him. That’s where things stand when Roger Mifflin, itinerant bookseller, shows up in his gypsy caravan/bookstore, wanting to sell it to Andrew.

Average Jones

Predictably, The Flagrant Years left me wanting to read more Samuel Hopkins Adams. Less predictably, it mostly made me want to reread books of his I’d already read. So I thought I’d take advantage of the impulse and finally review Average Jones, which I’ve now read three times.

Average Jones comes by his nickname fairly — his full name is Adrian Van Reypen Egerton Jones — and he’s the star of a series of linked short stories in which he solves mysteries having to do with advertisements. His career as an advertising expert (or Ad-Visor, as his cards say) begins as a hobby and at the suggestion of his friend Mr. Waldemar, editor of an important newspaper. Waldemar and another friend, Bertram, act as occasional sidekicks, but Jones is the only character who appears in every story.

The mysteries are clever and unusual, although Adams does have a disconcerting fondness for putting dead dogs in his stories. The mysteries mostly take place within the five boroughs, but one takes place in Baltimore and another in Baja California. I’m not sure which story is my favorite, but I know which advertisement is:

     WANTED—Ten thousand loathly black beetles, by
     A leaseholder who contracted to leave a house in the
     same condition as he found it. Ackroyd,
     100 W. Sixteenth St. New York

I don’t know what else to say about it — it’s just thoroughly delightful, in an unassuming, cheerful kind of way. It’s a good example of Samuel Hopkins Adams and of humorous mystery stories. If you’ve been wondering where to start with Adams, this might be the place.

The Madness of May

The Madness of May, by Meredith Nicholson, is very, very silly. But maybe not quite silly enough. Coincidence piles on coincidence, and most of the characters have given themselves up to the profession of ridiculousness, and Nicholson manages to have it all hang together pretty well, but…I don’t know. I’m going to tell you about it and you’re going to think it sounds awesome, but there’s something lacking. The nonsense isn’t infectious. The Madness of May should be magic, and it’s just not.

The Motor Maid

Someday I’m going to run out of books by the Williamsons where some people go on a road trip through part of Europe and at least one person isn’t what they seem and someone falls in love with the chauffeur. And on that day I will be very sad.

The Motor Maid has some really, really great bits, but mostly I enjoyed it as a good example of the Williamsons’ mini genre. (Has anyone encountered one of these chauffeurs-and-sightseeing-and-incognito books written by anyone else?) See, on one hand there’s the beginning, which takes place on a train and has a rough parallel to the beginning of Miss Cayley’s Adventures and made me think I might be starting my new favorite Williamsons book, but on the other hand this might be the snobbiest Williamsons book ever.

Christmas Stories: Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman Car

You know how some authors have specific things that they really like? Stuff you come across and think, “Well, if I didn’t know this was a book by ____, I would know now?” And you know how some of those things are weirdly specific?

Annie Fellows Johnston has a thing about fairytales and practical life-lessons and jewelry, in combination. There’s always a fairytale, it always has a specific application, and the child hearing it always gets a trinket to remember it by. And hey, that’s cool. All of those things appeal to me, separately and together. But clearly not as much as they appeal to Johnston. And it’s not that weird the first time around, but each time it seems weirder. And I’ve read all of the Little Colonel books, so at this point it seems pretty weird.

That’s a shame, though, because the morally significant jewelry is much more organic in Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman Car than in any of the Little Colonel books. Also, some of the morally significant jewelry isn’t jewelry at all.

Christmas Stories: A Reversible Santa Claus

I didn’t love A Reversible Santa Claus, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it. I can’t think of anything I wanted from it that I didn’t get, anyway.

It’s by Meredith Nicholson, author of the excellent House of a Thousand Candles, and it’s got a pretty good setup: a former thief known as Billy the Hopper — for the ease with which he’s always made his escapes — has retired with one last haul and settled down on a chicken farm with his wife, Mary, and another former thief, Humpy. Mary used to be a pickpocket. Humpy used to raise chickens in jail, so he’s got valuable experience. All three of them are glad to be living a quiet life within the law, but one day the Hopper sees a wallet sticking out of someone’s jacket on the train and is unable to resist pocketing it. This sets in motion a chain of events that results in the Hopper accidentally kidnapping a toddler.

From the point when the Hopper steals the wallet, through the accidental kidnapping and well into the middle of the story, he seems set on making things worse for himself and it’s a little uncomfortable to read. It doesn’t help that Mary and Humpy are so hostile to him. Things shift into a smoother gear when he tries to return the kidnapped child and ends up being sent on a supremely ridiculous quest. Everything goes a little more slapstick, and a lot more easily, from that point on — maybe too much so, as the various difficulties the Hopper still faces turn out to be implausibly easy to deal with. Still, it’s reassuring after the nerve-wracking beginning, so I didn’t really mind.

That’s the case with most of The Reversible Santa Claus‘ imperfections: there are things wrong with it, I guess; they just don’t seem like problems. This story has all the Christmas story things — a cute kid, a slightly beleaguered young couple, a reformed criminal, two vaguely Scrooge-like individuals, and themes of forgiveness and people being totally ridiculous. And when you take a closer look, none of it makes much sense, but the whole thing proceeds so smoothly and pleasantly that it’s hard to care. I don’t think this is going to be anyone’s favorite Christmas story, because Nicholson doesn’t try too hard with the emotional stuff — probably for the best — but it’s more than adequate.

When Ghost Meets Ghost

I think I’ve been over the whole William De Morgan thing before — how he was an excellent and super-important Arts & Crafts potter, how he had a second career as a bestselling novelist around the time he hit retirement age, how the mere mention of Joseph Vance renders me completely inarticulate, etc. It’s not his second career itself that’s so surprising — it’s that he was so good, and that he’s been so completely forgotten.

I keep wanting to make wild pronouncements about de Morgan writing postmodern pastiches of Victorian novels when the Victorian Era had barely ended, but I worry that I’m pushing it. I’ve read three of his books now, and while I don’t think that When Ghost Meets Ghost is quite as good as Somehow Good, or that much of anything is as good as Joseph Vance, it may be the most William De Morgan-y of William De Morgan’s books, and I continue to be impressed with William De Morgan.

Four Days: the Story of a War Marriage

Four Days: the Story of a War Marriage, by Hetty Hemenway, is exactly what it says it is. We don’t get the story of Leonard and Marjorie’s courtship, beyond the basic details (she’s American, he’s English, they met in the US and their wedding plans were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I). We also don’t find out what happens to Leonard and Marjorie after he returns to the Dardanelles. All we get is the four days of Leonard’s leave, during which he and Marjorie are reunited, get married, briefly honeymoon, and then part again.

Hollyhock

I have found the worst ever L.T. Meade book. Or at least I hope I have. I wouldn’t like to think it gets any worse. This is kind of an unedited rant, so, you know, be warned.

At the start of Hollyhock we’re introduced to two families, so; symmetrical that if the widowed father of one and the widowed mother of the other weren’t siblings, this would be The Brady Bunch. And it gets worse: George Lennox’s daughters are Jasmine, Gentian, Hollyhock, Rose of the Garden and Delphinium, known collectively as the Flower Girls, while his sister Mrs. Constable’s sons are the Precious Stones: Jasper, Sapphire, Garnet, Opal and Emerald. Only it turns out those aren’t their real names; they all have normal ones: Lucy, Wallace, Ronald, etc. that they don’t know about. Calling a little boy Opal and concealing from him that he’s really called Andrew sounds almost abusive.

Anyway, there’s a lot of Flower Girl and Precious Stone-related exposition, but none of it matters because you’re not going to see most of these kids again. I mean, Jasmine is usually around, and Jasper and Gentian show up from time to time, but mostly this is a book about Hollyhock, one of Meade’s beloved troublesome but fascinating heroines, and her relationship with Lady Leucha Villiers, who is both the secondary heroine and the villain. And not in the usual L.T. Meade way, where the quiet, sensible girl and the naughty gypsyish one become best friends. Although, to be fair, I haven’t read A Very Naughty Girl since I was in high school.

Anyway.

He Comes Up Smiling

It makes me a little bit sad when I read something light and fluffy and slightly absurd and I don’t like it very much. Part of it is that these books exist for no other purpose than to be fun, so it’s disappointing when they don’t quite get there. The other part is that I feel like there’s something wrong with me for not connecting with these books, like the fact that I didn’t have fun reading them means I’m not fun. I want to enjoy them — I try so hard to enjoy them — but the fact remains that probably two out of three silly, fun books leave me cold, and that I have a secret fear that that third book will never arrive.

This past week, I started with He Comes Up Smiling, by Charles Sherman. It’s about a tramp, which is kind of cool; you don’t get tramps as romantic heroes too often. And I found it really charming for a couple of chapters, as the Watermelon hung out with his hobo friends and really enjoyably scammed a barber.

In search of…

…a book I read a few years ago and meant to review. I foolishly neglected to write down the title or the author anywhere, but sometimes I find myself wanting to revisit it.

It was about an older woman who, when the story begins, is living in a home for elderly women. She unexpectedly inherits lots of money and a big house from a relative and relocates. She gets to experience all kinds of luxuries for the first time, but she also brings her own stuff to the table — common sense, mostly. She invites an old suitor to live with her as a companion, and I think she eventually adopts a kid or two. And there’s some stuff about fixing the problems of people in the neighborhood, which may involve her bringing them donuts she’s made. Also I think she buys a car.

It’s an American book, and for some reason I think it was published in 1911. Any help finding it would be appreciated. Recommendations of similar books would be appreciated, too. And if you’re searching for some public domain book and need help finding it, describe it in a comment and maybe someone here will be able to find it.

ETA: Found! I vaguely remembered that the title had a number in it and somehow dug up Drusilla with a Million. Feel free to comment with similar books or things you’re looking for, though.

The Idyll of Twin Fires

I suspect that the right reader would adore Walter Pritchard Eaton’s Idyll of Twin Fires, which is nothing like as ridiculous as the title makes it sound. I’m not the right reader, so I don’t know for sure, but I thing he or she would be pretty into gardening and possibly also farming, and probably wouldn’t find the first person narrator deeply unlikeable.

Again, that’s not me. But even so, I basically liked it. Sure, the protagonist, a young instructor at Harvard who quits his job and buys a farm, is pretty irritating. Sure, the romance takes over the plot of the book for a while and then steps back, leaving weird pacing in its wake. But there’s also this lovely thing where nothing particularly bad happens. In fact, not much happens at all. I mean, people plant seeds and paint walls and things. And plants grow. But there’s no disasters or drama or anything, nor is the book super boring.

So, yeah. Not really for me, but not bad at all.

The Confession

Here’s an odd little Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery for you: The Confession. There are a lot of familiar elements here — a middle-aged spinster who has raised a niece and nephew, her alternately loyal and mutinous servant, a house rented for the summer — but it’s not The Circular Staircase and it’s not The Bat*. Nor is it as much of a mess as either of those, probably because it’s a lot shorter.