Book completed
Apr. 27th, 2026 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeThe Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. This was one of my favorite books as a child – I had a hardcover copy that had been my mom’s – and it was fun to reread it. There were two things I hadn’t noticed or known then. First, the robin, who is a major character, is of course a European robin, not an American robin. As a child I naturally pictured the bird I knew as a “robin,” but the European robins are actually cute and delightful, as they’re more like sparrows or finches than like our American robin, which is really a thrush. Second, it was mentioned a few times that the brown winter grass was greening up for spring, and as a child this didn’t make sense, because our grass here in Oregon is lush and green year-round. However, I have since learned that in places like North Carolina the grass is also brown and dormant in the winter; Oregon is just an exception to these things (as is California, of course, where the grass is only green in winter but brown all summer). This time I also noticed the adult cousin who is Colin’s doctor, and who hopes to inherit if Colin dies. I was pleased that he wasn’t actually malevolent and was properly delighted when Colin’s health improved. As a modern reader, I was relieved to see that when the people referred to the “blacks” of India they were never actually derogatory toward them. Another thing I noticed was that the various Yorkshire folk always referred to daffodils as “daffydowndillys,” but Mary knows them as “daffodils” despite having only interacted previously with the servants in India. Maybe???
I wondered if, in the last chapter, there would be hints of the children’s future. Mary obviously loved Dickon and was attracted to him physically, but their social class differences would presumably preclude an eventual marriage, most likely? In the book, though, there’s no talk of the future except for Colin’s plan to become a scientist (and an athlete), and I see on Wikipedia that at least one modern commentator sees this emphasis on Colin as serving the patriarchy. Of course, too, when the book was published they had no idea that war was coming in the next few years. The boys were technically too young to serve in 1914, but Dickon would have been old enough later, so that’s sad. I hope he would have made it home again and that the natural world would have healed him too, as it did the other two children.
I wondered if, in the last chapter, there would be hints of the children’s future. Mary obviously loved Dickon and was attracted to him physically, but their social class differences would presumably preclude an eventual marriage, most likely? In the book, though, there’s no talk of the future except for Colin’s plan to become a scientist (and an athlete), and I see on Wikipedia that at least one modern commentator sees this emphasis on Colin as serving the patriarchy. Of course, too, when the book was published they had no idea that war was coming in the next few years. The boys were technically too young to serve in 1914, but Dickon would have been old enough later, so that’s sad. I hope he would have made it home again and that the natural world would have healed him too, as it did the other two children.
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Date: 2026-04-28 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-28 07:32 pm (UTC)