Christmas Stories: Mr. Bingle

I have pretty low standards for how coherent something has to be before I post it, but the 800 words I wrote on George Barr McCutcheon’s Mr. Bingle last week didn’t meet them. Basically, the problem was that I loved the first few chapters of the book, hated the rest, and allowed my extremely conflicted feelings about George Barr McCutcheon to get all over everything.

Graustark

I’ve been very busy lately, but I always make time to read. What I can’t always make time for is the writing part. So, in an effort to catch up, here are my brief thoughts on Graustark:

Graustark is about a rich American named Grenfall Lorry — and his name is pretty much the coolest thing about him — who falls in love with a mysterious foreign girl traveling through America with her aunt and uncle. He follows her home to Europe, only to find that she is actually Princess Yetive, ruler of the tiny principality of Graustark.

Keineth

I should be writing about Graustark, by George Barr McCutcheon, which is probably the book the phrase “Ruritanian romance” was invented for, but I just finished Jane Abbott’s Keineth this morning, so I’m not in the mood for talking about Grenfall Lorry’s supposed heroics.

Jane Abbott was recommended to me by frequent commenter Elizabeth, who has far better taste in girls’ books than I do, and I started with Keineth because it was one of the only ones available on Project Gutenberg. I have trouble imagining that I’ll like any of Abbott’s other books better, though.