Project Gutenberg? Well, some of 'em, anyway.
(Haven’t read Fauntleroy, but read and liked Secret Garden, even though it did get a bit gushy at times.)
Freudian Slit - The point behind The Secret Garden was that Colin didn’t have a dread disease, but his absent father projected that fear onto him because he (the father) was a hunchback. The housekeeper and the doctor catered to him and made him feel like an invalid. It was Mary’s common-sense approach and unwillingness to give in that helped Colin.
I’ve loved FHB all my life. I’m also fond of Gene Stratton Porter, although her works can be very racist to modern sensibilities.
StG
True, but then they started talking about Ben Weatherstaff’s arthritis in those same terms. I liked the book, but it just seemed so convenient to me–that he never really had an illness and he just needed some good time out in good English air. That and the whole yay for Empire feeling of the whole thing…
I read Little Lord Fauntleroy back when I was about six, the same time I read A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. I loved Secret Garden and liked *Little Princess *a lot, although I thought Sara was a little too virtuous, but *Fauntleroy *is the first book I can remember loathing with every fibre of my being. I thought the kid was an insufferable, syrupy, affected, simpering little snot and I hoped someone would throw him off a tall building or at least give him the spanking of a lifetime.
I haven’t read it since, so it’s possible that I’d change my mind if I read it again, but I can’t be arsed finding out.
Worked in Heidi, too . . . goat’s milk and substitute Alpine air for Yorkshire, and Klara will be trotting good as new!
Yay for Empire? I thought it was a very accurate depiction of a child who’s been abroad and comes back to what people think ought to be “home” for her. Not to mention that her Indian experience was hardly portrayed in a positive light - her parents ignored her, she only really interacted with servants, and then they all died in an epidemic.
All of the India sucks because it was so hot and everyone was too lazy to do anything just really pissed me off. I mean, it’s not surprising because during the time period, that’s how people would have thought–that England was just so superior because, well, it was England! And even the servants were better in England because they’d answer back to you and tell you off whereas the servants in India just kowtowed, and…blech. But yeah, cultural awareness wasn’t really big back then.
Project Gutenberg has two of those for download, along with a bunch of others.
As far as books that I may be the only Doper that has read, I’ve read a lot of Victorian/early 20th century books off of Gutenberg. Mainly travel adventures and Great War stuff. Some things I wouldn’t be surprised I’m the only one that has read: The Social History of Smoking, Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons, Letters of a Soldier, Football Days, My Adventures as a Spy.
Yup
I have adliko on my droid and I read a lot of free books off feedbook.com.
I just got done reading everything by Edgar Wallace, working my way through Howard McGrath, and am now going back through my previous reads looking for the novel that was turned into the movie The Devil Doll.
Oh, definitely it was Yay Empire. Just try reading it as an Indian, and those things stick out a lot. Actually, I rarely read books like this because of the implicit assumption that Indians are lesser…this is one of the exceptions if only because the Indian part is so brief.
Anaamika, glad to see it wasn’t just me! I’m Pakistani and even though I grew up in America, all Americanized 'n stuff, this jumped out at me even as a kid. Same with C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy and the whole thinly veiled, “Teehee, aren’t Muslims funny, not like us Christian, er, Narnians.” They were fun books for what they were, but as a little kid, I couldn’t help thinking, “So what is so wrong with the subcontinent?”
I will not read a Passage to India, as well as many other so called “classics” along those lines. I have a really hard time reading anything by Brits about India. There is just that undertone of negativity there that disgusts me - you rule over us for 300+ years and you still think we are animals and subhuman? The thing that really makes me :dubious: is the comments that “at least the Indians are better than the blacks”.
I’m sure Pakistani people were considered the same way.
It’s like - I love Pearl S Buck. I loved The Good Earth and I read it as a storybook. My Chinese SO and his dad HATE the book and hate the author, because of the ignorance therein. They have a personal stake in it. I do not, so I can enjoy it as a storytale.
This is why, from the OP:
I was going to ask what you thought of Kipling, but maybe I’d better not.
Yes, many years ago.
Silly boy, she’s never Kippled.
I haven’t read him in years and years and years. I don’t really remember what I felt about him, back when I read him as a teen. And am not particularly inclined to re-read him.
Don’t get me wrong, btw. It’s not like I go around in a low-level state of rage because of this stuff! I just can’t read it.
Well, I just read Little Lord Fauntleroy and have to confess I quite liked it, even though it was revoltingly sappy. I mean, it’s short - I wouldn’t have read a thousand pages about what a pretty, brave, honorable, blah blah blah child he was, but I could enjoy it for an afternoon. Free on the Kindle.
I read Little Lord Fauntleroy a couple of decades ago, and have mostly forgotten the story.
Has anyone else ever read The Little Lame Prince? It made more of an impression on me than LLF.
So Fauntleroy isn’t ass raped and left for dead ay the end? My sister lied to me!