The Shuttle

I've just finished reading The Shuttle and didn't like it. It's the first Persephone book I haven't really enjoyed, so I suppose that had to happen sooner or later. I just thought all the characters were so one-dimensional. What did others think?

Hi miss_read

I've just packed The Shuttle in my suitcase, so I'll let you know! I really enjoyed The Making of a Marchioness though, so I have high hopes - well let's say, I did have high hopes, until I read your post!

Louise

I just ordered The Shuttle!

fabrile-heart....how romantic does THAT sound...."I've just packed The Shuttle in my suitcase"....

Do tell, dear Miss Heart.....where are you off to?

Louise - please don't let me put you off it! Different strokes, and all that. I'll wait until you've read it and we'll compare notes, OK?

Yes, please tell us where you're off to!

- Helen

We are hoping to take in some cleaner, cooler air by heading west. Vancouver is the first stop and then on up into Alaska for some serious get-away-from-it-all time out. I've done some research regarding used bookstores, but if anyone's got any recommendations I'd love to know...

I liked The Shuttle but didn't love it. I ran out of patience with the characters at times, and I didn't think it was as good as The Making of a Marchioness.

I did like it, quite a lot, just as much as The Making of a Marchioness.

What is it about The Making of a Marchioness that is more satisfying? In my humble opinion, Marchioness is really rather an unlikely if thoroughly enjoyable Cinderella story. Conversely, The Shuttle, while romantic in the story of Bettina and Mount Dunstan, is in my view much more suspenseful. There is every chance, despite Bettina's thorough competence, that her sister will wilt and die before Bettina gets her out of Nigel Anstruther's grip. Is it the length of The Shuttle that gets in its way? Is that what makes readers grow impatient? I'd really like to pursue this.

I haven't yet read The Making of a Marchioness, so I can't really compare the two. But I don't think length had anything to do with what I didn't like about The Shuttle. My problems were with the characters themselves. Bettina was so damned perfect that I couldn't warm to her at all. If she'd been given just one flaw, she would have been OK. And Rosalie was so utterly helpless and feeble that I found it difficult to have any sympathy for her whatsoever. As for Astruther, he was such a complete villain that he was more like a cartoon character than a real person. Blech. I didn't like the book.

(And don't even get me started on Frances Hodgson Burnett's glorification of the "American way" with its wonderful get-ahead philosophy and emphasis on making money. Another blech to that.)

Dear Miss Read, I noted the same difficulty with Bettina in my review of The Shuttle; I agree she would have been better as a character if she'd had a flaw. And I will even agree with you that Rosie doesn't fight back at all. And Nigel was perhaps an overly melodramatic villain.

That said, I think I found the story compelling in my initial read because it was so unexpected. I hadn't known that Burnett wrote for adults. Her novels for children were entirely different in tone.

I think I liked the book because it does seem to reveal the attitudes of another period with all of its warts and glamour. That I find engaging as a reader.

I agree that the setting and sense of time/place made the book sort of worth reading. It was just the characters themselves which I didn't like so much. At all, actually.

And, no, I hadn't realised Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote for adults either!

One "children's writer" who, I think, pulls off an adult novel brilliantly is Noel Streatfeild, whose Saplings (published by Persephone Books) is brilliant. I wonder if that's because it's an adult novel about children. I haven't read her children's books (but Ballet Shoes was one of my wife's favorites when she was a little girl).

And come to think of it, Dorothy Canfield Fisher wrote children's books (Understood Betsey), and also my favorite Persephone Book for adults, The Home-Maker. It's interesting that the publisher has on its list at least three novelists who "crossed over" from children's writing to writing for adults.

I just found a wonderful website where you can read The Shuttle and other copyright-free classics....

www.classicreader.com

edited to fix link....didn't work. sorry.

Loved it! Have posted my review here.

What next?