Live blogging: Alton Park, Day II
Although I'm sure everyone thought I'd come to my senses, I am staunch in my dedication to reading terrible religious fiction.
Besides, it helps to feel as though I'm sharing the suffering with all five of my readers.
7:15 PM: We return to Lady Alton blaming a twelve-year-old girl for not being more regular in her church attendance, even though the child has been saddled with all of her ill mother's household responsibilities.
7:18 PM: Maria now lectures the ever-obnoxious Frances on obligations to teachers, which at least is something that most of us can get behind.
7:19 PM: ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT AMIABLE
7:20 PM: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING AMIABLE
7:21 PM: "Amiable" strikes twice on the same page. Would somebody please get in a time machine and buy this author a thesaurus?
7:22 PM: For reasons not immediately clear to me, Frances and Lady Alton repeat the discussion Frances just had with Maria about their new governess. Surely the novel is long enough already.
7:23 PM: "How few young persons appreciate, as they ought, the care, fatigue, and anxiety of those who take upon themselves the important but thankless office of education!" (107) PREACH IT!
We interrupt this live blog to take a parental Skype call. Back in about thirty minutes or so.
8:29 PM: Whoops, a bit later than expected. For some reason, I felt the need to do some housekeeping, pet the cats, and glue some dollhouse mouldings before returning to this live blog.
Onward.
8:30 PM: Good heavens, the novelist really is stuck on the dangers of sleeping in.
8:34 PM: Time for an inset narrative: "The Fatal Consequences of Ungoverned Passions." Wow, I feel such...suspense.
8:36 PM: AMIABLE: RESURRECTION
8:37 PM: The inset narrative is about a teenager who pretends to commit suicide, thereby killing her mother instead. This is what I'd call upbeat.
8:38 PM: For some reason, this story reminds me of the Shel Silverstein tale about the girl who wanted a pony.
8:39 PM: The mother is dying, and will therefore speak at great length.
8:40 PM: It appears that among the many enormities the mother committed as a child, she...cursed.
Good heavens.
8:41 PM: Hellfire and damnation! (I.e., what being a disobedient child leads to.)
8:42 PM: It's really annoying when God decides to punish you with a lousy marriage.
8:43 PM: Obnoxious child as divine punishment, too.
8:44 PM: And the child fails to reform, despite her mother's warnings. WHERE WILL THIS ALL LEAD?
End of inset narrative.
8:45 PM: Epilogue: the obnoxious child dies alone and unhappy. Of course.
8:52 PM: Dancing is OK, apparently.
8:57 PM: And now for a lecture on the eucharist.
Incidentally, the author hasn't trotted out an "amiable" in several pages. I begin to have hope.
8:58 PM: By some odd coincidence, the author now gets on the topic of religious hope. Granted, this is a rather different kind of hope than "I do hope the author has come up with a new adjective."
9:16 PM: Still going, as is the author. We're on general confession now. I have a few things I'd like to confess about my experience of this novel, but that's not what the author means, I fear.
9:20 PM: Venial sins, anyone?
Not quite so sure how effective this novel was at the "amusement" bit of its subtitle.
9:25 PM: This novel sets a new record for children hurling themselves bodily at their parents' feet.
9:27 PM: The author keeps insisting that Frances is improving, and yet, she acts like a brat during every single appearance. This is not a brief for education--or, for that matter, the narrator's veracity.
9:35 PM: Long excursus on how not to be bored in church, basically.
9:37 PM: It's worth noting how little time Lady Alton spends alone with her kids--outside of going to church, they see her in the afternoons, and that's about it. Her husband appears to be an almost absent presence in his kids' lives.
9:39 PM: JURASSIC AMIABLE
And we were doing so well on the "amiable" front.
9:41 PM: On a more serious note, the novel's detailed description of what happens during the mass is actually pretty unusual in later novels, which avoid representing Catholic services at any great length.
10:03 PM: We return to our regularly scheduled programming after dealing with cat-related issues.
I'm afraid that the novelist would have much to say about my lack of discipline.
10:04 PM: It's allegory time, baby!
10:05 PM: A wealthy woman should not make her own clothes, lest she deprive the less wealthy of employment. Presumably, she shouldn't do her own housekeeping, either.
Hey, I could get on board with this argument.
10:07 PM: And now for another inset narrative, this time about the perils of liking nice clothes.
10:10 PM: STAR WARS: THE AMIABLE AWAKENS
10:13 PM: Time to discuss the moral obligations of the wealthy to the poor!
10:17 PM: STAR TREK: INTO AMIABLE
10:17 PM: On the other hand, we have a salutary reminder that people may lose everything, no matter how hard they work.
And on that cheerful note, we finish this evening's allotted one hundred pages.