false 2 2 false true Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 23 07:36:08 -0800 2007 Thu Aug 13 08:45:31 -0700 2009 1 A Midsummer Night's Dream in a typically British summer house party. I was interested enough to start reading it. Craig then acknowledged Forster's contribution to her story by having one of the characters reading A Room With a View. I would have been pleased with this since it is one of my favorite books and Craig is definitely writing something that draws on his cleverest analysis of the British of a certain class traveling in Italy on vacation. Craig's book is a story of social manners and the people finding themselves through their relationships within the isolation of being a British tourist in Italy, with the addition of some of Shakespeare's fairies. The homage to Forster, the clever inclusion of childhood behavior and mischief with the child's entry into the fairy world, and some funny adult situations, in the adults-do-stupid-things on vacation way, create an intelligent and amusing novel. Or it should create that.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth von Arnim already wrote The Enchanted April and Craig lifted nearly the entire plot, several characters, and all of the setting from it (minus the fairies), and then added the children. It wasn't subtle; it was stolen right down to the mysterious owner of the house arriving at the end of the visitors' stay and falling, instantly, for the only woman who had not otherwise found a partner during the previous chapters. It was lovely when Elizabeth von Arnim did it in The Enchanted April because she had spent so much of the book reflecting on women's relationships (with both men and women), women's ideas of themselves and what they want from life. Here, without any of her reflection or insight, it was predictable, and annoying. It was like she had decided she had written a light, vacation book, and had to have a tidy ending.

The book is well enough written, but I've read an earlier and better version. ]]>