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Nov. 24th, 2018 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Until
osprey_archer posted about That Lass O'Lowrie's I honestly had no idea that Frances Hodgson Burnett had written books aimed at adults, or indeed any books at all other than the Big Three (The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.)
That Lass O'Lowrie's centers on a Lancashire coal mining community and has four central characters, three of them educated outsiders: Derrick, the new mine engineer who wants to institute safety reforms; Paul Grace, the frail but earnest curate; Anice Barholm, the sensible daughter of the self-satisfied and relatively useless rector; and ✨Joan Lowrie✨.
✨Joan Lowrie✨ is a tall, brilliant, beautiful, extremely competent mine worker who over the course of the book:
- teaches herself to read
- adopts Fallen Teenager Liz and her illegitimate baby
- after telling the entire town that if they're going to be dicks to Liz they have to COME THROUGH ✨JOAN LOWRIE✨ FIRST*
- rescues her love interest from being murdered by her abusive father
- then starts secretly bodyguarding him home EVERY NIGHT, thwarting innumerable other murder attempts
- and THEN, to top it off, saves him from a mine cave-in
- and still the climax of the book is ~*~Joan Lowrie~*~, action heroine, first running away from her love interest so he doesn't demean herself by marrying her and then, when love finally triumphs, asking for more time to make herself worthy of him before they can get married, because classism is a hell of a thing
(*unfortunately, Joan Lowrie, being fictional, is not in a position to make such a threat to Frances Hodgson Burnett, who therefore has full reign to be as much of a dick to sad fallen teenager Liz and her baby as might be expected of a sentimental Victorian moralist)
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That Lass O'Lowrie's centers on a Lancashire coal mining community and has four central characters, three of them educated outsiders: Derrick, the new mine engineer who wants to institute safety reforms; Paul Grace, the frail but earnest curate; Anice Barholm, the sensible daughter of the self-satisfied and relatively useless rector; and ✨Joan Lowrie✨.
✨Joan Lowrie✨ is a tall, brilliant, beautiful, extremely competent mine worker who over the course of the book:
- teaches herself to read
- adopts Fallen Teenager Liz and her illegitimate baby
- after telling the entire town that if they're going to be dicks to Liz they have to COME THROUGH ✨JOAN LOWRIE✨ FIRST*
- rescues her love interest from being murdered by her abusive father
- then starts secretly bodyguarding him home EVERY NIGHT, thwarting innumerable other murder attempts
- and THEN, to top it off, saves him from a mine cave-in
- and still the climax of the book is ~*~Joan Lowrie~*~, action heroine, first running away from her love interest so he doesn't demean herself by marrying her and then, when love finally triumphs, asking for more time to make herself worthy of him before they can get married, because classism is a hell of a thing
(*unfortunately, Joan Lowrie, being fictional, is not in a position to make such a threat to Frances Hodgson Burnett, who therefore has full reign to be as much of a dick to sad fallen teenager Liz and her baby as might be expected of a sentimental Victorian moralist)
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Date: 2018-11-24 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 05:24 pm (UTC)Lots of psychological horror. I've got the Persephone Making of a Marchioness and now need to read that again.
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Date: 2018-11-24 06:07 pm (UTC)(I was about to express my astonishment that That Lass O'Lowrie's DIDN'T have any child neglect (based on my previous experience of her novels) and then I remembered Joan Lowrie's entire backstory...)
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Date: 2018-11-24 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 12:34 pm (UTC)There is an appropriate fate for a woman whose reaction when all the money has gone and the servants have walked out is "Who is coming to rescue me?" and "Why won't that annoying screaming noise shut up?" and convincing herself that she is far too scared to go upstairs in the dark and work out how to feed her own baby?
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Date: 2018-11-25 02:47 pm (UTC)Well, appropriate in the sense of "yep, I can buy that happening to a person who acts like that".
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Date: 2018-11-25 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 09:38 pm (UTC)[ETA: Even though England probably isn't visible from Alpha Centuari.)
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Date: 2018-11-24 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:10 pm (UTC)....and everyone else is also perfectly nice.
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Date: 2018-11-24 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 08:17 pm (UTC)Right, that's beautiful.
Also, she looks like an entire town would be idiots to take her on.
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Date: 2018-11-25 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:04 pm (UTC)I had forgotten about the cave-in till you mentioned it but Joan Lowrie, Secret Bodyguard is basically branded on my brain. Following Derrick home every night so her father can't kill him! Undeterred by his insistence that he can look after himself! Untroubled by the dark!
I hoped that Joan would be able to adopt Liz's baby and Liz could... IDK, somehow bamboozle her lover into marrying her? I'm not sure what else would have been a happy ending for Liz; clearly not marrying a miner and barely scraping by for the rest of her life. But alas, it was Not To Be.
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Date: 2018-11-24 06:17 pm (UTC)I hoped without hope for a happy ending for Liz and the baby. :( Liz could have gone to be a lady's companion or something! All she really wanted was to be surrounded by pretty dresses and relatively nice things!
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Date: 2018-11-24 07:16 pm (UTC)I feel that they would probably go on to sire children who would then become the neglected waif heroes of another FHB novel. But it would still be a happier ending than what poor Liz got.
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Date: 2018-11-25 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 07:08 pm (UTC)RANDOM VILLAGER: It's obvious Joan Lowrie's Secret Sweetheart must be trapped down there. Who would have thought it?
THE ENTIRE REST OF THE VILLAGE: If you want to pry into Joan Lowrie's private life at any time you're an idiot, and if you want to start when she's worked up they won't find two scraps of your body left; for God's sake stand back and let her get on with rescuing him .
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Date: 2018-11-25 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 08:15 pm (UTC)Maybe in the time that's supposed to take, she'll figure out maybe it runs the other way round?
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Date: 2018-11-25 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 08:24 pm (UTC)I'm particularly fond of A Lady of Quality (kick-ass heroine, whose most unbelievable accomplishment is becoming a paragon of upper-class manners after being raised in what amounts to a frathouse), T. Tembarom (a missing heir story with a twist), and The Shuttle (a villain that makes Tien Vorsoisson look like a halfway decent husband).
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Date: 2018-11-25 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 10:38 pm (UTC)Dear ✨Joan Lowrie✨, please marry me instead.
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Date: 2018-11-25 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-25 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-26 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-24 11:48 pm (UTC)Ah, that means you still have The Lost Prince to look forward to.
[eta: Whoops, sophia_sol got in with basically the same comment while I was writing mine.]
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Date: 2018-11-25 03:45 pm (UTC)