The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Welcome to our reading of Olive! I'm just posting this today because I'm unsure of my schedule tomorrow.

In this section we meet the core family: Sybilla Rothesay, Captain Angus Rothesay, Olive, and Nurse Elspeth

What do you think of these characters so far?

What are the beauty ideals of Captain and Mrs. Rothesay?

What are the thoughts of the author/narrator on the characters and their behavior, and do you agree with her?

In what ways might Nurse Elspie be inadvertently preventing Mrs. Rothesay from becoming more affectionate with her daughter, as the author implies?

How does life change for the household when Captain Angus returns?

What are some of the changes that take place after the family moves to their new house in England?

I'm not sure that we've got much in the way of character yet. Sybilla is immature, vain and a drip, Angus the strong silent type, Elspeth the devoted retainer and Olive so far just a baby.

What I'm struggling with is the prose style: following immediately upon Jane Austen, the archaic affectations, the sentimentality, the melodrama and all the exclamation marks are really setting my teeth on edge and the verbosity is like wading through treacle. The information contained in 8 chapters could have been conveyed in as many pages, or less, and I kept thinking "Oh, get on with it!" But I will persevere because it has got good reviews on this site and perhaps it will grow on me as Olive becomes a more interesting person.

I'm afraid I'll follow the group read with a little delay ... I'm currently reading the almost contemporary (1848) Mary Barton with another group, and after having had a look into Olive, the contrast in style and setting is just too much for me. I'm afraid I couldn't do justice to another Victorian middle-class country house etc. story while being absorbed in Manchester working class lives amidst strikes and famine.

Jenny wrote: "I'm not sure that we've got much in the way of character yet. Sybilla is immature, vain and a drip, Angus the strong silent type, Elspeth the devoted retainer and Olive so far just a baby.

What I'..."

Yes, this novel is a wordy one. I got pretty impatient in parts, especially near the end.

sabagrey wrote: "I'm afraid I'll follow the group read with a little delay ... I'm currently reading the almost contemporary (1848) Mary Barton with another group, and after having had a look into Oliv..."

That's all right, join when you are able. Mary Barton is one of my favorites!

I suspect mom may have been happier if her husband had stayed away! Although hopefully she will truly change and accept a role of loving mother at last. I feel bad for her husband, he certainly did not expect Olive, much less how insipid his wife had become. As for Olive, hopefully she develops some spirit and resilience, she's been pretty sheltered so far.

Lori wrote: "That's all right, join when you are able. Mary Barton is one of my favorites! "

I liked it the first time round, I like it even more the second time ... on the way to favourite with me, too. But well, here comes Olive ;-)

Dianne wrote: "I suspect mom may have been happier if her husband had stayed away! ..."

I find it very hard to believe in a husband who will stay away from his wife for five years! Given her youth, it must have been longer than he'd known her for. Was that really something that happened in those days?

I’m enjoying it so far. The prose is beautiful to me. It really shows the pressure on women to produce, in this case, a perfect child. The immediate distain by the mother for the imperfection is a great example of her shallowness which also comes out through these chapters. Sybilla acts like a spoiled child. Yes she’s young and been sheltered, but she seems to lack maturity.

I don’t think Elspie got in the way of the mother caring for olive especially she olive was not thriving from sybilla neglect. Elspie is a servant and sybilla could easily have stepped in but chose not to

I'm enjoying it too. Olive is a very special child, which she needs to be since she wasn't welcomed by her mother once Sybilla was informed of the deformity. Elspie kept the little one alive.
Angus and Sibylla didn't get a chance to know each other very well, since he went away before Olive was even born.
Sibylla had probably never heard the word No in her entire pampered and sheltered life, being so beautiful and all. No one did her any favours indulging all her whims because of her beauty. She is immature, as you stated, Deborah.

I found the opening quite startling. I’m accustomed to an introductory narrative in Victorian fiction, but here we’re dropped into a birthing chamber with a graphic description of a newborn! My first thought was realism but the subsequent text didn’t sustain that supposition, so I fear that graphic opening was mere sensationalism.

Sybilla’s reaction was disappointing but not surprising, physical deformity being linked in so many people’s minds with evil. She is a shallow creature but was doubtless brought up to be an empty ornament so I don’t altogether blame her. Her husband I find harder to forgive, thinking more of how he was deceived than of a child’s feelings and needs.

Interesting to read another unwanted-child story so soon after Mansfield Park. I see some psychological similarities between Fanny and Olive—the desire to please, the focus on what others want over oneself, the growth of inner resources.

Regarding the husband’s five-year absence: that wasn’t so terribly unusual, though it seems Captain Livesay may have drawn it out longer than necessary for selfish reasons, his prideful wish to be rich because he’d been humiliated by being called a fortune hunter. Ships to and from the Caribbean might have traveled only three or four times a year, and presumably the business enterprise there involved farming, which can take years to set right if it has been mismanaged in the past. This book was published in 1850 and slavery ended in Jamaica in 1838, more or less, so if we assume Olive’s childhood to be taking place in the 1830s and Sybilla’s holdings in Jamaica to be plantations, he would be overseeing the transition of the labor force. The long shadow of colonialism again.

Jenny wrote: "What I'm struggling with is the prose style: following immediately upon Jane Austen, the archaic affectations, the sentimentality, the melodrama and all the exclamation marks are really setting my teeth on edge and the verbosity is like wading through treacle.."

I couldn't agree more. The style is so ... 18th century.

I can appreciate the author's efforts to enter into the child's mind and to show the child's perspective. With not 100 % convincing results, although I have a hard time pointing to what is out of tune.

It made me think of Dickens' writing about young Paul in Dombey and Son, which is more powerful although Paul is an even stranger child than Olive. Maybe it is that: that Olive's peculiarities and character have - as yet - no contours. She is twelve at the end of these chapters, and at this age, we could see some special interest emerge, some specific way of seeing the world, something of a character of her own - but she appears to me curiously amorphous.

sabagrey wrote: "Jenny wrote: "What I'm struggling with is the prose style: following immediately upon Jane Austen, the archaic affectations, the sentimentality, the melodrama and all the exclamation marks are real..."

Could she be amorphous due to the lack of being exposed to anything? It seems she’s just sequestered in the nursery.

Deborah wrote: "I don’t think Elspie got in the way of the mother caring for olive especially she olive was not thriving from sybilla neglect. Elspie is a servant and sybilla could easily have stepped in but chose not to"

I kind of get what Mulock was saying, but it's hard to explain, except to say that it's hard to act naturally around someone who you know is judging you, especially if you're very image-focused. Of course there is always the option to ignore what others are thinking, but Sybilla evidently decided to let things go on as they were.

I also found it difficult to settle in with the writing style of this author. I am a used to greater precision and focus in the descriptions of characters and scenes when reading most Victorian authors.

Nevertheless, I admire the author’s courage in choosing her subject when at the that time deformity would be more or less a taboo subject. A great many children from the middle and upper classes who were born with disabilities, both physical and mental, would often disappear from the family home to be placed in large institutional ‘hospitals.’ Most of these hospitals continued to exist well into the 1980s before they finally disappeared.

At least Olive remained a member of the family in our story, so in that respect the author would be somewhat of a pioneer.

As for the mother and father, Olive may have become the catalyst for their distrust of each other but they seemed ill suited from the start. I am finding it difficult to understand how they ever truly loved each other. Their growing apart has left Olive isolated with her Nanny. The death of the Nanny poses questions about Olive’s future.

Will Sybilla’s new found love/guilt/regret over Olive last or is it just a fleeting emotion which will leave Olive truly alone? Will the pull of Sybilla’s society whirl of a life be just too much for her to really care about Olive?

I am beginning to fear for what might happen in the next stage of Olive’s life.

Perhaps the rules of courtship ensured that there would be many such marriages of ill-suited people. The captain would have met Sybilla at dances and dinner parties and she seems the sort of person who would shine in such contexts. Like many he would have been charmed by her physical beauty and social graces and would have mentally assigned other positive traits to her without any evidence that such traits existed. And he left before they had a child to change the relationship so her faults weren’t yet apparent.

Trev wrote: "Will Sybilla’s new found love/guilt/regret over Olive last or is it just a fleeting emotion which will leave Olive truly alone? Will the pull of Sybilla’s society whirl of a life be just too much for her to really care about Olive?."

The change of Sybilla's character comes a bit suddenly for me, not quite plausible.

Abigail wrote: "Perhaps the rules of courtship ensured that there would be many such marriages of ill-suited people. The captain would have met Sybilla at dances and dinner parties and she seems the sort of person..."

I don't think we're told how long they'd been married, are we? Or even how long they'd known each other. But Sybilla is so young, it can't have been long. And then they're apart for five years, with only letters every few months. It's hard to see how any marriage could survive that - hardly knowing each other to start with, and then getting used to being without each other for so long. It would have been more to wonder at if the relationship had recovered.

I don’t think we’re told specifically but there is a comment that they had known each other a shorter time before his departure than after his return when they move away from Scotland, so it seems to have been during their first year of marriage that he went to Jamaica. Sybilla appears to be quite fertile so the fact that her first child was in the womb when he departed implies that the marriage was new.

Just caught up here. Not sure if the author is supporting the ideals of beauty or attacking them. I like the comparison of Olive with Paul Dombey, also the children in Jude the Obscure, who are barely real at all. I assume we'll get more from Olive as she grows older. I'm also reminded of Pru in Precious Bane who is born with a harelip and therefore considered unlucky and undesirable. But she has some spunk nonetheless. (Precious Bane is a wonderful book, but too late for our time period, written in 1924 though set in an earlier era.)

Sybilla is a child-wife like David Copperfield's mother. She probably would have gotten tired of a child, no matter how beautiful, once it developed a mind of its own. She would have enjoyed dressing up a daughter and showing her off, but she would have preferred seeing her own friends (and - Heaven forbid!) dancing over dealing with a child.

I'm surprised there's no mention of the clergy. I would think Sybilla would be a churchgoer and a minister could help her deal with her "misfortune". He might bring up the lepers and cripples cured by Jesus. (this reminds me of another serious and sickly child - Tiny Tim - who thought it was good on Christmas for people in church to see him and remember who cured the lame.)

I didn't mind the style so much, but the Scots dialect sometimes threw me off.

Robin P wrote: "(Precious Bane is a wonderful book, but too late for our time period, written in 1924 though set in an earlier era.)."

Thank you for the hint - never heard of the author nor of the book. I have poked around a bit and ... started reading it ;-))

There’s a group read of Precious Bane going on right now in the Goodreads group Women’s Classic Literature Enthusiasts.

Abigail wrote: "There’s a group read of Precious Bane going on right now in the Goodreads group Women’s Classic Literature Enthusiasts."

Thank you for yet another hint! :-)

Abigail wrote: "There’s a group read of Precious Bane going on right now in the Goodreads group Women’s Classic Literature Enthusiasts."

Just been visiting Much Wenlock, a beautiful Shropshire town in the heart of England where Mary Webb lived her childhood years. The museum has some interesting information about Mary, including details of the film adaptation of Precious Bane, entitled ‘Gone to Earth.’ This 1950 production was mainly filmed in the area with many of the extras coming from Much Wenlock. It can be watched here..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMf1e...

Trev wrote: "details of the film adaptation of Precious Bane, entitled ‘Gone to Earth.’ ."

It seems it's an adaptation of Webb's novel of the same title Gone to Earth, not of Precious Bane.

I haven’t been to Much Wenlock since I was 14 but remember its charm! Though we’re straying from Olive.

sabagrey wrote: "Trev wrote: "details of the film adaptation of Precious Bane, entitled ‘Gone to Earth.’ ."

It seems it's an adaptation of Webb's novel of the same title Gone to Earth, not of Precio..."

Oh Sorry! yes you are right. I got mixed up between the two. Apparently, there was a BBC adaptation of Precious Bane in the 50’s but being so old it seems to be lost.

Abigail wrote: "I haven’t been to Much Wenlock since I was 14 but remember its charm! Though we’re straying from Olive."

I was going to comment earlier about Precious Bane being one of the very few novels I have read where the main protagonist has a disability. I thought it an interesting coincidence that I visited Much Wenlock yesterday and Mary Webb’s novel was mentioned in this group the very next day.

Olive's disability is what made me think of Precious Bane. In this book, Olive is ostracized and almost blamed for her disability. Besides having a hunchback, she seems to be sickly and underdeveloped for her age as well. It didn't help that she was almost starved as an infant (Did Sybilla stop nursing her and if so did they get a wet nurse? Or did Elspie rig up some kind of feeding mechanism?)

I was thinking about Paul Dombey as well when reading about Olive. But there is one giant difference between the two situations-everyone loved Paul but Olive only had Elspie, who is now gone.
Olive didn't really have a childhood in the normal sense. She seems old beyond her years.

Rosemarie wrote: "Olive didn't really have a childhood in the normal sense. She seems old beyond her years."

that's what puzzled me and made me use the expression 'amorphous' for the description of her character. For me, there are inconsistencies in her 'cognitive age' as it is depicted.

(I would have to read these chapters again, and very closely, to pinpoint what created the impression; but I'd rather wait to see whether the novel is worth the effort)

I think that what both Olive and the heroine of Precious Bane have is disfigurement rather than disability, isn't it? I don't get the impression that Olive's spinal curvature particularly affects what she can do, but rather how people perceive her.

Jenny wrote: "I think that what both Olive and the heroine of Precious Bane have is disfigurement rather than disability, isn't it? I don't get the impression that Olive's spinal curvature particularly affects w..."

Good point, there wasn't anything about her having difficulty walking for instance, except that she is weak overall, maybe she is supposed to have some kind of syndrome that affects more than just the back. Sad that one element can make people turn against a child - sometimes it was even having red hair!

I'm enjoying the story, although the Scottish dialogue can be difficult at times. The rejection of Olive by both of her parents due to her disfigurement is appalling but perhaps not unusual for that time. Without Elspie's intervention, Olive might well have died of neglect in the first months of her life. I agree with what others have said about Sybilla being spoiled, and also with the idea that neither she nor Angus was prepared for marriage. But I found his fury at Sybilla to be over the top. He was disappointed that Olive was not perfect and that Sybilla had kept the news from him. But his reaction of saying he could no longer trust Sybilla was extreme, showing absolutely no sympathy for his wife's tribulations.

Sybilla is very immature still, but Angus is a cold one.