By the Shores of Silver Lake Part 1

CW: Pet Death

With the advent of both Nellie Oleson *and* a plague of locusts last time, I ended up breaking my Little House notes into two parts, and I think I’m going to continue that. For one thing, the books get longer here. For another, there are more distinct and ongoing plot threads in each, rather than Stuff Happens, Other Stuff Happens, Food is Great.

Boy howdy does Stuff Happen in this one. And before it.

Holy Happy Ending Override, Batman! I guess that happens when you’re writing a long-running series, and more so when it’s based on your actual life, but still, the gap between Plum Creek and Silver Lake really emphasizes it. Everything’s looking up, no more grasshoppers, OH HELLO SCARLET FEVER ALSO THE LAND SUCKS NOW FOR SOME REASON.

(It is not known whether that reason is white people or not, but…probably?) 

It actually seems like there are two…quadrologies?…here: Woods through Plum Creek, where there are definitely problems and occasionally the horror that is Nature, but simpler, and then Silver Lake through Golden Years (whoa, see what you did there), where adulthood hits like a brick to the back of the head.

And there’s no better way to express that than having the dog die! Apparently Laura put that in as a deliberate transition–probably not the first instance of Death by Newberry Medal, but a fairly early one nonetheless. At least he dies of old age rather than some horrible prairie mishap.

Still, though: “There were so many times that she might have petted him without being asked, and hadn’t,” JESUS FUCKING CHRIST WILDER.

To sum up: everything sucks, and then Aunt Docia arrives (these people had relatives at some point, remember, or at least Charles did) to offer a job doing administrative stuff at a railroad, and Charles is all, hey, we can also grab yet more land! So they accept and then Jack dies.

“Now she was alone; she must take care of herself. When you must do that, then you do it and you are grown up.” Ooof.

In addition to that bit of 19th-century coming-of-age, this book involves probably the least food porn in the series. (The Long Winter doesn’t count: there’s no food half the time, but when there is it’s so damn lavishly described that it’s almost worth South Dakota Fimbulwinter.) It…makes up for that?…with the most detail about engineering and, specifically, TRAINS.

(Pre-1950s libertarians seem to generally be very fond of trains, which is weird considering the amount of shitting on public transportation they do these days.)

Wilder has a talent for describing mundane modern stuff in ways that make you realize just how non-mundane it was at first. White sugar and lemonade were those things in earlier books. Trains are, big-time, in this one: they’re really fast! Often they crash and people get killed! It’s quite a contrast from my life, where I–and I am in favor of public transit–mostly think of trains as a workaday system of being constantly late and full of noisy people.

On the other hand, the Wilders’ train has red velvet seats, and this was before cell phones were invented, and both of those things probably helped the general experience.

They arrive in a town, to find that OH NO people are filking a hymn to be about HAM AND EGGS oh my god the SCANDAL.

I’m not kidding. The term “shocking words” is used with no irony whatsoever. I try…okay, I don’t so much try to take historical concerns seriously as I acknowledge that historical people (especially white Christian people) were concerned with some incredibly ridiculous bullshit, and most of the time that doesn’t surprise me any more. And then there’s this sort of thing.

Fortunately, there’s a sympathetic dishwashing girl in the hotel who lets them use the parlor–and honestly I want to know more about *her* story–and they all spend an incredibly boring-sounding afternoon while Grace naps, and then Pa comes so they don’t have to hear any more distressingly mildly irreverent songs.

Oh, yeah: Grace exists now, because historical novels about girls absolutely have to have four of them, and reality itself will enforce this. Mary and Laura are Ladylike and Tomboy, respectively, of course, while Carrie and Grace conveniently take on the Sickly and Bratty roles. Grace is never as bad as Amy March, though, for which we can only be thankful.