Perhaps it's because I haven't read any Betts for about a year, but I was struck by how bourgeois and cliched the book is (I read part of Britannia all at Sea today). Here are examples from the chapter I read:
Britannia is not wealthy, but she notices her companions' "long evening gowns, beautiful garments such as she had often gazed at in Fortnum and Mason's windows or Harrods". I admit I've gone and looked at the gowns in Fortnum and Mason and in Harrod's, but I find it odd that a nurse would do so "often" when her family isn't wealthy. It seems pointlessly aspirational, or like some weird self-torment.
Of course, Jake's family eats off "exquisite china" with seventeenth-century silver for a formal dinner. This dinner hits almost every cliche from the mid-twentieth century that I can think of: lobster soup, roast leg of pork with spiced peaches (served on "a great silver dish" and carved amid what must have been the most banal carver/surgeon jokes imaginable), and then mangoes in champagne as a sweet, served with champagne. All they needed was caviar and, perhaps, baked Alaska, and we could have had a food cliche BINGO.
In other bourgeois, upper-middle-class news, Britannia and Jake play Chopin on the piano, and Britannia receives a Gucci scarf from Jake.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Britannia all at Sea, chapter 7
Jake proposes! "I have brought you here [to a small room away from the party] to ask you, in peace and quiet, to marry me, Britannia." By Betts standards, that's not a bad proposal. Of course, she's wildly surprised, because she assumed he would marry the tiresome Madeleine.
It's a family party, including Madeleine, who has been invited for so many years that they think it would be rude not to invite her. She's furious at Jake's attentions to Britannia, and for once I have some sympathy. It wouldn't have killed Jake to pull her aside and say, "look, I've been taking you around for years, but now I'm going to propose to Britannia." Though if he had, it would have lessened her wrath and made it less likely she'll cause trouble in chapter eight or nine.
It won't be hard to cause trouble; Jake proposed, and Britannia said yes, but there is no formal announcement or ring yet, possible because Britannia wants to talk to her parents first. Seems reasonable to me, but as I said, it might be left that way so Madeleine can cause trouble in the next two chapters.
This chapter is filled with antiques. At dinner, they eat off seventeenth-century silver. Relatives of Jake's receive antique jewelry from Sint Nikolaas, and at the end of the chapter Jake shows Britannia his house, including antique furniture and paintings commissioned in the nineteenth century. In other words: old money.
It's a family party, including Madeleine, who has been invited for so many years that they think it would be rude not to invite her. She's furious at Jake's attentions to Britannia, and for once I have some sympathy. It wouldn't have killed Jake to pull her aside and say, "look, I've been taking you around for years, but now I'm going to propose to Britannia." Though if he had, it would have lessened her wrath and made it less likely she'll cause trouble in chapter eight or nine.
It won't be hard to cause trouble; Jake proposed, and Britannia said yes, but there is no formal announcement or ring yet, possible because Britannia wants to talk to her parents first. Seems reasonable to me, but as I said, it might be left that way so Madeleine can cause trouble in the next two chapters.
This chapter is filled with antiques. At dinner, they eat off seventeenth-century silver. Relatives of Jake's receive antique jewelry from Sint Nikolaas, and at the end of the chapter Jake shows Britannia his house, including antique furniture and paintings commissioned in the nineteenth century. In other words: old money.
mad apologies!
I've been unable to find my copy of Britannia All at Sea for months now, so I finally unbent and did the thing I'd promised myself I'd never do: bought it online. Before now, I'd always gotten my Bettses in person, either through friends or through lucky finds at used bookstores. This took all the serendipity out of it, but it was driving me crazy not to blog. So as soon as I read the next chapter, I'll post - which should be funny, because I barely remember the plot! I'm sure it will come back to me.
One Pair of Feet
I've just finished Monica Dickens's One Pair of Feet this evening. It's fairly funny, telling about Dickens's first (and, as it turns out, only) year of nursing school. She went during World War II, which puts her training not too far off that of Betty Neels. I was struck by the similarities: weeping junior nurses in the sluice, tyrannical (or fair and kind) Sisters, remote surgeons. I don't know that I'd recommend it, because Dickens uses some of-her-time but racist phrases occasionally. But I thought of Betts and longed to read some of her books with competent Sisters after reading One Pair of Feet!
avocado pears
On Thursday I was talking with some friends. One of them, a fellow Anglophile, mentioned avocado pears. I asked what they are, because Betts heroines eat them sometimes. I've always had a mental picture of some interesting fruit plate, possibly including pears, shaped to look like a pear.
Well, it turns out that an avocado pear is - an avocado. How anticlimactic! I'd have to check the OED to suss out how they got that name, given that pears have seeds and avocados don't. Weird.
Well, it turns out that an avocado pear is - an avocado. How anticlimactic! I'd have to check the OED to suss out how they got that name, given that pears have seeds and avocados don't. Weird.
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