The Blue Envelope

I haven’t updated much lately because I’m taking a couple of classes up at Columbia and they provide me with lots of reading. I haven’t had much time to read things for fun, let alone write about them. But there’s always more time for reading than writing, and I’ve built up a backlog of books (which sounds nicely alliterative, don’t you think?).

One of them is The Blue Envelope, by Roy J. Snell. I have a hard time describing this book. It wasn’t at all what I expected from the title, or even what I expected after reading the introduction. Actually, it wasn’t what I expected after having read half the book, which was, you know, somewhat disconcerting.

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High Noon

So, remember Paul Verdayne from Three Weeks? An anonymous someone wanted to give him a happy ending, and wrote this sequel, High Noon. Sadly, it does not take place in the Western United States, although that would be hysterical. Instead, Paul returns to Switzerland and again falls in love with another mysterious Russian lady with black hair. It’s not really clear why, since right up until he falls in love with her he’s supposed to be indifferent to women. But apparently she resembles his “Queen” from Three Weeks, and then he decides that his Queen must have sent her, or something. And then he starts acting like every other man in every other early twentieth century trashy romance novel — well, half of them. The other half are creepy rapists like the hero of The Sheik.

But I suppose it doesn’t really matter if the plot makes any sense, because the writing is terrible. I mean, check this bit out:

“Oh! God,” he cried, out of the anguish of his soul, “what a hideous world! Beneath all this painted surface, this bedizened face of earth, lies naught but the yawning maw of the insatiable universe. This very lake, with its countenance covered with rippling smiles, is only a cruel monster waiting to devour. Everything, even the most beautiful, typifies the inexorable laws of Fate and the futility of man’s struggle with the forces he knows not.”

The Purple Heights, 2/2

The second half of The Purple Heights is very different from the first. Chadwick Champneys sets out to find Anne Simms, commonly known as Nancy, and finds her working as a maid in the home of her mother’s stepsister. Nancy has red hair, freckles, and a bad temper.

The Purple Heights, 1/2

Oh, Marie Conway Oemler. Why are you so awesome? How many small, fictional, South Carolina towns have you created? What is it with the butterflies? Why aren’t there more of your books on Project Gutenberg? Is there, like, a fanclub I can join?

So, yeah, I enjoyed The Purple Heights.