📚 'Rather Dated' January: E. Nesbitt: 'The Lark' 📚

[FuzzyCaoraDhubh]

Welcome to the discussion for our January book, E. Nesbitt's 'The Lark'.

This is a story about two young girls, two cousins, Jane and Lucilla, who have just left school to discover that their guardian has swindled them out of nearly all their inheritance and decide to make the best of it, because as Jane says, 'When did two girls of our age have such a chance as we've got-to have a lark entirely on our own? No chaperone, no rules, no...'

We follow the girls as they begin various money-making schemes from selling flowers to taking in paying guests (PGs or PIGS!), sometimes with unexpected consequences. As the girls hurl themselves into new ventures, the reader cannot help but cheer them along, as they are a genuinely funny and likeable pair.

I loved the humour in the book; the banter between the girls, the situations in which they find themselves, the authorial voice that interjects and makes gentle fun of them. Also, the charming young men that are drawn to the girls are ever-so-charming, even if they should be kept at arm's length, because the girls want to be independent and stand on their own feet.

The writing in 'The Lark' is excellent. The book is rich in period detail with references to furnishings, fabrics and flowers aplenty. It also evokes the years immediately following WW1, especially with the character of Dix, who was completely down on his luck until he meets Jane and Lucilla.

Altogether, this is a thoroughly captivating book that I would recommend to anyone who wishes to be transported to another time and place. Spending time with Jane and Lucinda, is, in my opinion 'an admirable brain tonic'.

Do people still write books about the role of money in love. Have we lost honesty in the books our young people read or do we just hide it?
I love the relentless practical thread running through The Lark.
I'm pretty sure some of my 20 something daughters friends are prepared to overlook disagreeable points if a man has a fortune and potentially wants to share that lifestyle. It was ever so!

I have more sympathy with Mrs Bennett and Mrs Rochester now then 30 years ago.

Finished! Due to the menopausal sleep disruption rather than youthful excitement.
Gosh, the last chapter is a bit of a rush isn't it. I think we read a EM Delafield last year that also galloped towards the end.

Yes, I thought the ending was a bit rushed too. I wanted Lucilla to pair up with the lovely Dix. I wasn't impressed by the return of the guardian!

I'm disappointed no one punched the Guardian and he ran away so quickly.
I also wonder about poor Miss Antrobus, all set up for a slow burn romance with Mr Dix in the next door cottage and suddenly the 'girls' are kicked out of Ceder Court and all three ' laid the foundation of sober Spanish cottages.'
Do you know the Spanish reference, laying foundations could be a biblical quote, hinting at perseverance.

The Lark is set in 1919, after WW2 ended in November 1918. Edith Nesbitt was 63 when she wrote this in 1922. Her early personal life was a total mess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Nesbit

Knowing the dates, I appreciate how the characters are all processing the war in different ways. It was a terrible time economically and I know parts of my family did leave their homes in Ireland and England, looking for work.
She does write like a surviver at all costs but also doesn't seem to trivialise or make fun of young people's feelings.
Before I looked up the dates I recommended it to my 18 year old DD as Edwardian YA. (She recently enjoyed Little Women). Her take is that it wouldn't be written today, it's all dragons and waiting to be rescued or climbing out of some miserable mental health hole on the shelves.

Sorry, just brain dumping here. On a roll!

Loved the burglers with their musician cover instrument cases. So I looked up The Lady killers (1955) but thinking about Bugsy Malone it's probably just a trope of the time. A laptop case today doesn't have the same swagger.

I really enjoyed this one. In some ways it’s a bit too convenient the way they’re always rescued one way or another - something or someone always arrives to help them out just when they need it - but it’s still a charming story.

I loved the section with Lucilla pretending to be the aunt and everyone realising immediately but just going along with it. That was funny.

Yes, I agree. It was a bit like a fairytale in that respect, but I think the humour in the book kept it grounded.

I loved the dressing up parts. The trick that Lucilla played on Jane pretending to be Mrs Rochester was funny as well. I cringed when she gave the real Mrs Rochester a slap!

The phony musicians were good too, stashing the loot in their music cases. Very enjoyable.

Place marking without reading what everyone has posted in case of spoilers. Thanks for starting the chat Fuzzy. I’m only halfway through the book I’m afraid, but very much enjoying it. I’ll be back when I’m done.

Chat to you then @MotherofPearl 🙂

I’m loving it! Back when I’ve finished it.

@BookEngineI'm sure it's a typo, but it's set after the end of WW1, not 2.

I've just started reading this, will return later. AS Byatt's novel The Children's Book is based on E Nesbit and her circle. Prim and proper Victorians they were not!

Total typo!
Thanks for the ASByatt tip off. I have that on my bookshelf as a will reread, so good, but had forgotten it was on that crowd.

I love it when stuff starts to interconnect.

Tell me more @TonTonMacoute who else was in the circle, was it very loosely based?
Between Enid Blyton, Elizabeth Beresford, lee Miller, etc did anyone writing have a standard marriage - kids, death, kind of life.

No. But then what would there be to write about?*

I have The Lark which I started reading a few years ago and got distracted. Must try again.

*Although I read a great book called 1913 which is first hand accounts from various people around the world, compiled chronologically throughout the year. There are lots of artists and philosophers etc who we consider avant-garde and, actually, they were quite timid about living their lives, not that different to most of us.

Sorry to digress but I like to crowbar in a recommendation for this book as it's a great and rather amusingly entertaining read:-

Florian Illies: 1913 The Year Before the Storm

I didn’t realise you were doing a chat on this! I absolutely loved it and found it joyful and charming. Yes, they get rescued a lot but they’ve also got lots of ‘pluck’ so I didn’t see it as necessarily perpetuating the patriarchy and it didn’t bother me at all, just added to the fairytale like charm.

Agree that it ended in too much of a rush: I would have liked more.

If anybody can recommend anything that is a similar ‘lark’ I’d be very grateful.

Sorry I’m late joining in, everyone. Loved this - I did have a copy but hadn’t got round to it, and hadn’t ever read any of E. Nesbit's novels for grown-ups, though I was a child who adored the Bastables and (especially) 5 Children and It.

There was a lovely feeling of fun and mischief in this that felt familiar from her children’s writing, and the fairytale aspects were balanced by practicality for the most part…though I wasn’t 100% convinced by the disguise as the aunt.

Very much a sidenote but it was interesting that Nesbit called one of her heroines 'Quested' - the same name chosen just a couple of years later by EM Forster for Miss Adela Quested in A Passage to India. Nesbit and Forster were very close friends - probably just coincidence but it did strike me.

It was depressing to find out, years ago, what a crap life Nesbit had with a relentlessly philandering shit of a husband and having to write like a maniac to support the family.

Belatedly joining the conversation about The Lark, which I enjoyed immensely. As others have already noted, there is a subtle but important post-WWI theme running through the book which gave it a heft beyond the superificial story of Jane and Lucilla's 'larks'. Mr Dix is the most obviously affected by the war and also post-war economic hardships, though I think Mr Thornton also alludes to this, and we hear that for Miss Antrobus, the war was the 'making of her', as it was for many young women, especially of her class.

I wondered how much the book was deliberately nodding to Jane Eyre, with the Mr Rochester and Jane parallels? Jane Eyre is mentioned at some point in the novel.

I found the story and the girls' various scrapes engrossing, and at times very funny. The character of Gladys made me laugh, as did Mrs Doveton and her son Herbert. And all through it I was of course willing a happy ending for Jane and Mr Rochester. Is it dreadful that I was slightly hoping for the Rochester uncle to die in Tibet (or Thibet, as it is spelled in the book) and leave his fortune to his nephew, who could then make a home at Cedar Court with Jane (and indeed Lucilla), with Mr Dix and Miss Antrobus living happily ever after in their cottages?

I have not read Jane Eyre in years but wondered if there were more parallels including starting off at school, the window seat, the attic tower room - convenient for observation but all with a happier undertone.

Might have talked myself into rereading Jane Eyre!

Never a bad thing to re-read Jane Eyre, @BookEngine !

So long as one skips most of the school stuff and the Really Fucking Boring Missionary Twat section!

I think that would be a very likely event in the near future for Jane and Lucilla, that they would eventually inherit Cedar Court, MotherofPearl, and that would be the happy ending.

I thought the nod to 'Jane Eyre' was funny, but I don't see any other connection to that book. However, when I think of it, I don't remember a lot of it, other than a very large dose of religious droning on, as Remus elegantly put it. I preferred 'Tenant' out of the Brontë books.

I also enjoyed Mrs Doveton's contribution ('No, thank you. I don't want the honour of cleaning your big sprawling house'). And I also liked Miss Antrobus, too, another woman who knew her own mind. Great name as well, Miss Antrobus. It sounds like the name of a principal. No nonsense about her.

Some of the other characters are fairly identifiable, Eric Gill for one, and I think also Kenneth Grahame and JM Barrie. I think her personal circumstances, particularly her husband's relationship with her friend who lived with them as a sort of housekeeper, are portrayed fairly accurately, but im sure poetic license was used as well, so it's difficult to be sure. I have a feeling some ceramicists were in there too. Might be time for a reread

I'm a quarter of the way through Jane Eyre. Poor kid.
Looked up 'Resurgam' and despite reading my childhood hard copy, Google must know. It immediately links Resurgam - I will rise again, with this is a recurring theme that reflects the strength of the main character in Jane Eyre.

The Lark girls, continuingly rise again but with less angst for the soul, good humour and much better food.

Things I've noted so you don't have to reread Jane Eyre in a world with more entertaining options.

45 out of the 80 orphans are ill with typhus, they haven't shut the school. This was written in 1847, and transmission by the human louse wasn't identified till 1909. Grim.

Harry Potter link - John Reed and Mrs Reed sound so like the Dursleys , his ' delicate health' - too many sweets treats and her adoration. Like Harry, Jane is also to be kept at school for the holidays. I guess we could stretch that to the Larks being trapped at boarding school due to the war but it's a common enough trope to get the main characters out of the family home.

I will slog through the rest, it might not go back on the shelf, life being too short to reread and then revisit The Children's Book

I watched a great film over Christmas about a boy and a teacher stuck in a boarding school together over the Christmas holiday. I’d recommend it - but I’ve completely forgotten what it was called!