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Heaven: 2021 August Book Discussion: The Story of the Amulet
August's book is The Story of the Amulet by E. Nesbit. This book is the third in her trilogy about five children and their magical adventures, first with a Psammead (a sand fairy) and then with a Phoenix, but can be read without reference to the two other books. It's easily available on the internet, libraries and book shops.
I'll post some questions on the 20th.
I'll post some questions on the 20th.
Comments
If you know nothing about Edith Nesbit, the wikipedia article gives a basic outline. She lived a colourful life to say the least.
It's surprising to find how important the illustrations of a childhood book are. I bought a set of the Narnia books for my children and they have the original line drawings coloured - by the original artist, but they still don't sit right with me. I'm gradually collecting a set with the black and white line drawings, for my own satisfaction.
Similarly, I have several versions of "The Just So Stories" with different illustrations, but the one with the author's own is, for me, The One True Version.
There was another short story she wrote, which was in my 'Stories for 8 Year Olds' book (anyone else get these books for each birthday as a kid? Stories for 7 Year Olds, Stories for 8 Year Olds, etc), about a princess who had a curse on her that made her bald, and then this was put right by a different spell that made her hair grow, but it includes the caveat that the hair growth doubles whenever it's cut, so her hair is growing uncontrollably, though they find a way to fix it at the end - I quite liked that one!
I haven't read any of her adult stuff or, I think, her cautionary tales. Much as I love (and loved) what I've read of hers there's something about all of it that is very slightly unsettling. I've yet to be able to put my finger on what it is.
I loved Five Children and It, and especially the Phoenix and the Carpet, which is still one of my favourite children's books.
I do love the railway children too, but since reading The House by the Railway (1896) - which is essentially the same book and not by her - really difficult to avoid the idea that Nesbit pinched a lot of it. Separated family, forced relocation with mother to a new house in the country by a railway line, avert danger on line by tearing up red petticoats to attract attention, presented with engraved watches, family reunited, the end.
Before this I had read the Railway Children a couple of times - I didn't mind it as a child, but found the children insufferable as adults. I know their family was struggling, but they were still pretty well off and better off than a lot of people who helped them. I was surprised an author who wrote such middle class child characters who seem to be oblivious to the lives of the working class was so left-wing ! Then I got up to the chapter on the Queen in London and the stock exchange. Without giving away any spoilers: Yikes! The stereotyped English stockbrokers were easy to stomach, but the Jewish stock brokers, not so much and one short scene is very dark for a kids' book.
I haven't read any of this series, but had watched some of the 1991 series of 'Five Children and It' when I was 12. Maybe I was too old for it, or maybe I just didn't like the tension of all the wishes going wrong, but I never really liked the T.V. show. In this book the children sometimes almost deserve things going wrong and as an adult I know all will end well so it doesn't have the same tension.
*Covid lockdowns and restrictions meant the church stopped running after church classes on the Culture Wars and therefore we are now back to studying the actual bible (Colossians) in the mid-week study to my great relief!
Even Leonard Woolf was known as “the Jew” by his Bloomsberry mates.
I was thinking in lots of ways Nesbit is a vast improvement on other Victorian children's books. Take Jessica's First Prayer, where the heroine can't go to church until she has decent clothes to go in Very much a story about knowing your rightful place. Then there's one, the title of which I can't remember, where a Frenchman saves a drowning child at the cost of his own life, even though he's a Catholic.
I have very mixed feelings about prequels and sequels written by other authors although, to be fair, I haven't read Wide Sargasso Sea which I've heard is very good. I quite enjoyed Scarlett but years ago I read either a sequel or a prequel to Rebecca and spent a very long time wishing I hadn't. Thankfully I've now forgotten it (and don't want to be reminded, thanks! ) as it spoiled that lovely book for me for a very long time.
I'm trying to work out what's going on with the narrator of Five Children and It, as there is a definite intrusive narrator who is full of opinions, and a slight grumpiness, but I'm not sure if we just accept this is the omnicient narrator who happens to be telling the tale, or if they will materialise as an actual character within the story.
Though I can't tell if Nesbit has created a naive narrator for us to laugh at, or if she's created a mischievous narrator with a droll sense of humour. Same with the comments about the earth clearly not really being round. I kind of hope the former - it's fun to have meta layers like that, where events are being recounted and judged through a character who acts as the ultimate authority but is also being portrayed in a way to reveal quirks and limitations to be laughed at.
She really does, doesn't she - I'm always impressed with how she deals with complex, difficult stuff in a straightforward style, on a level for kids, and still makes the books fun. I'm going to try and get hold of this to read.
1. The narrator, did you find it intrusive or enjoy their asides. Do you assume it is Nesbit or another unseen character.
2. Which episode(s) did you enjoy the most? Is there anywhere you think they should have gone that they didn't.
3. Was it a satisfactory story. Did it make logical sense within its own parameters.
4. Did the casual racism and the attitudes towards working class people spoil your enjoyment of the book (assuming you did enjoy it)?
5. If you could travel to the past of the future where would you want to go and why?
6. If you know anything of ancient civilizations (I don't), do you think Nesbit's re-imaginings were accurate?
1. The narrator, did you find it intrusive or enjoy their asides. Do you assume it is Nesbit or another unseen character.
I enjoyed the asides and always assume it is Nesbit having a quiet smile with the reader.
2. Which episode(s) did you enjoy the most? Is there anywhere you think they should have gone that they didn't.
I enjoyed most of them in their different ways. I found chapter 10 quite striking - "The Little Black Girl and Julius Caesar" - where the learned gentleman wished they could take the child to a home where they would be glad to have her and the way they did, and found her mother, but was it really her mother? And the Psammead's wisdom in the comment "Who knows? But each one fills the empty place in the other's heart. It is enough." I thought a lot about that.
3. Was it a satisfactory story. Did it make logical sense within its own parameters.
Yes. As often with fiction, once I'd made that willing suspension of disbelief I think it worked pretty satisfactorily for me.
5. If you could travel to the past of the future where would you want to go and why?
I'd go back and rectify some of my own past mistakes.
6. If you know anything of ancient civilizations (I don't), do you think Nesbit's re-imaginings were accurate?
I don't either - and I doubt they were accurate. With the lack of sanitation and health care in the places they visited... think of the smells...
Note btw that sanitation might well have been a problem in London circa 1905. Still a lot of horses been used for transport though the trams mentioned early on could have been electric.
1. The narrator, did you find it intrusive or enjoy their asides. Do you assume it is Nesbit or another unseen character.
I didn't find the narrator intrusive. I didn't really notice the asides sticking out at all.
2. Which episode(s) did you enjoy the most? Is there anywhere you think they should have gone that they didn't.
I liked Atlantis since I didn't keep trying to remember if it was accurate to my knowledge of what the real historical places were like and could just enjoy the descriptions of the fictional city. I also liked the adventure in the future as I like comparing science fiction predictions of the future with reality to see how accurate they were. I feel conflicted about H.G. Wells due to his personal life being pretty icky, but have read a book of his predictions and I think this chapter may have been influenced by his ideas as Nesbit knew him.
My favourite scene was when the children went to a magic show and the Egyptian priest popped up in the audience from the past and the magician assumed it was an amazing magic trick.
3. Was it a satisfactory story. Did it make logical sense within its own parameters.
I was expecting the children to look more systematically for the amulet from the start and found it a bit irritating that they seemed to be going on random adventures most of the time. However it was consistent with their ages and interests and eventually they started to think more critically about where to look and learnt more from each trip in time.
I got more enjoyment going down internet rabbit holes inspired by this book. The paint brush licking episode led to me researching if white paint from the past contained lead and was sweet as described and then learning lots of history about how lead might have caused Roman rulers to go mad and how the U.S. allowed lead paint a lot longer than other countries and everyone's laxness about lead meant we had cars with poisonous lead petrol for far longer than needed. Many countries also used lead as a sweetner for wine 🤢I also enjoyed reading more about the Phoenicians and trying to find out if they really did go to Cornwall to trade for tin.
I tried to find contemporary reviews of the Psammead series in the free Australian newspaper archives to see what the reception was of it at the time. It was reviewed as a delightful series for children with more realistic children than the precious angels or moral examples of many books of the time. (Although I have read quite a few books from the same time period where the children more rounded than these children, in my opinion). No reviewers picked up on the more adult themes alluded to, which was interesting.
I also found out Edith Nesbit had a fairly famous/infamous lawyer cousin in South Australia, Edward Nesbit, later know as Paris Nesbit. He was a lawyer who was a child prodigy who translated one of Goethe's works at age 10, but also struggled with his mental health and was locked in an asylum in Melbourne for stalking a woman and breaking into her house. He was then released, but jumped overboard from a ship travelling back to South Australia and tried to swim back to Melbourne to find the woman, leading to another stint in the asylum. When his health was good he wrote a lot of long lasting legislation though and was a popular identity in Adelaide. He seemed to spruik his cousin's talents quite a bit, but as the most talented woman poet of the times, rather than as a children's author. Was/is Edith Nesbit known for her poetry, or was Paris just boasting about his famous relative? I found a few examples in the newspapers, but I don't know enough about poetry to judge how good they were.
4. Did the casual racism and the attitudes towards working class people spoil your enjoyment of the book (assuming you did enjoy it)?
As mentioned earlier, the stock market scene threw me, both the violence and the anti-antisemitism. Even the violent scenes in the past were a bit much. The children just conveniently returned home and left people murdering each other quite a bit without much concern. It made me less sympathetic to their trials, but by the end I was happy their family was reunited. It was interesting that the book promotes better treatment of the working class, while also portraying them as not very bright.
There was also the still unfortunately common idea that people who live in advanced, wealthy civilisations are more intelligent and/or superior than people in less developed societies which I find distasteful.
5. If you could travel to the past of the future where would you want to go and why?
I have read too many time travel books with unintended consequences to want to travel to the past or future!
6. If you know anything of ancient civilizations (I don't), do you think Nesbit's re-imaginings were accurate?
I think some were fairly accurate based on theories and knowledge of the time, but I'm not sure about the blond people in Egypt from the first adventure, whether that was a theory at the time or just something Nesbit made up. Racism did lead to various theories that European people must have ruled Egypt when the pyramids etc. were built, because people from North Africa or Arabia would not be intelligent enough to build them or know the mathematics required, in the mind of white supremacists.
1. The narrator, did you find it intrusive or enjoy their asides. Do you assume it is Nesbit or another unseen character.
I hadn't given this much thought before. I don't think I noticed the narration when I read the book as a child, and as an adult I've just enjoyed the asides. I think I've always assumed it was Nesbit, as it sounds very much like I think she would have sounded.
2. Which episode(s) did you enjoy the most? Is there anywhere you think they should have gone that they didn't.
I too enjoyed Atlantis, and I rather liked the whole episode of the trip to the Tin Isles. The meddling in history so Julius Caesar didn't invade (well not that time), was quite fun too.
3. Was it a satisfactory story. Did it make logical sense within its own parameters.
I loved this book as a child, and still think its interesting that a lot of London mentioned in the book is still there today. I also liked the fact that there were separate adventures, something I still like in a book. I now wish that some of the episodes were longer and that the story developed a bit more. I'd like to know what happened to the Babylonian queen, and I guess C.S. Lewis did too, as Jardis in The Magician's Nephew pretty much seems to be her.
4. Did the casual racism and the attitudes towards working class people spoil your enjoyment of the book (assuming you did enjoy it)?
I don't know if Nesbit was anti-Semitic, but she certainly comes across this way in this book. The first chapter with the blond blue eyed inhabitants of Egypt being over-run by people who looked like the man that had sold them the amulet was an example I don't think I'd have noticed as a child.
5. If you could travel to the past or the future where would you want to go and why? I thought Nesbit's future was interesting, maybe more so than I did as a child. Clean air and re-cycling seemed very much part of the culture, though Nesbit seemed a bit hazy on what everyone was doing for a living. I think I'd like to go back to Nesbit's time and actually see what the children saw.
6. If you know anything of ancient civilizations (I don't), do you think Nesbit's re-imaginings were accurate?
Apparently Nesbit sent the drafts of the chapters to Wallis Budge to whom the book was dedicated for his opinions, so I guess she tried to re-imagine the past in a way she thought was reasonably accurate. I've mentioned Five Children on the Western Front, but until I read about Wallis Budge's life I didn't realise that Saunders probably based one of the characters on him.
I've really enjoyed immersing myself in the world of the Psammead for a while. I didn't mention him in my questions but what did you think of him as a character?
Rereading it as an adult I do find the casual racism and attitudes towards working class people disturbing and dated but like @Sarasa I wouldn't have picked them up as a child and they didn't spoil my reading this time around.
I hadn't made the link between C S Lewis's Jadis and the Babylonian queen and don't think I found that episode particularly unresolved.