The Squirrel Cage

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Flo Gibson

The house of the Emery family was a singularly good example of the capacity of wood and plaster and brick to acquire personality. It was the physical symbol of its owners' position in life; it was the history of their career, written down for all to see, and as such they felt in it the most justifiable pride. When Mr. and Mrs. Emery, directly after their wedding in a small Central New York village, had gone West to Ohio they had spent their tiny capital in building a small story-and-a-half cottage, ornamented with the jig-saw work and fancy turning popular in, and this had been the nucleus of their present rambling, picturesque, many-roomed home. Every step in the long series of changes which had led from its first state to its last had a profound and gratifying significance for the Emerys, and its final condition, prosperous, modern, sophisticated, with the right kind of woodwork in every room that showed, with the latest, most unobtrusively artistic effects in decoration, represented their culminating well-earned position in the inner circle of the best society of Endbury.

Genres: Classics

8 pages, Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 1912

About the author

Also wrote under the name Dorothy Canfield.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early decades of the twentieth century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. In addition to bringing the Montessori method of child-rearing to the U.S., she presided over the country's first adult education program and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned about this author from a book I read a few years ago, written by a couple of reporters who had visited France during WWI. I was intrigued by their reaction to her, and added her name to my Someday Lists.

Someday finally arrived this year and Dorothy Canfield Fisher is my Gutenberg author for the third quarter of my ON AIR project. This was the first book on her list, published in 1912 with 36 chapters overflowing with the possibilities of life for a debutante returning to Ohio after her year abroad.

It is now time to settle down, have her 'coming out', hopefully land a husband, and begin her career as a Society Lady. But is that what Lydia wants out of life? There is Mr. Rankin, a man who gave up his job in the insurance business when he inherited a patch of woodland. He lives there in a little house, builds furniture, and does odd jobs. But he is oh, so interesting, in a disturbing sort of way.

Lydia is nineteen, has no idea what she wants out of life, but does know that she feels she should DO something with herself. Can she make her own decisions? Can she follow the whispering of her heart? Does she dare? Or will she simply let everyone else run her life for her?

I was interested for quite some time in our Lydia and her girlish dilemmas. Lydia was obviously not completely content with the idea of the life everyone expected her to live, but she also was not brave enough to face up to her doubts. So much easier to let other people make decisions for her!

I became annoyed not only at Lydia but at how the author makes certain other characters worry more for her than she herself does. It all began to feel a bit too over the top, just too much fretting and not enough solving. I decided that Miss Lydia can do whatever she is going to do without my knowing about it!

I have also deleted a few Fisher titles from the list: another society girl story, a book of poems, and a couple of titles about society women. I still have five books on the list, though. One talks about the Montessori method of education, which she helped introduce to the USA; and the other is about WWI. She 'followed her husband to France in 1916' (per wiki), raised her children in Paris and did relief work to help refugee children and blinded soldiers.

So I think I will still get a good concept of what Ms. Fisher stood for, just hopefully without all of the hand wringing melodrama of this particular book.

DNF at around 130 pages, after 13 of 36 chapters.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, Dorothy Canfield, tell me how you really feel about materialism. Her heart is in the right place, but this book is so turgid and overwrought that I don't know when I've last been so glad to get to the last page of a novel.

In many ways, this book is like an American A Room with a View. The heroine, Lydia (the Lucy Honeychurch counterpart) is a petted pampered young thing on the cusp of life. She is torn between a socially desirable engagement with a suitable man (Cecil -- only Lydia's man, Paul, is cut in more of an American mold, an up and coming businessman, a real dynamo sure to make lots of money, whose business is in fact, selling and overseeing the installation of dynamos), and an attraction to an unsuitable man. Lydia's George Emerson is named Daniel Rankin, and has forsaken a career in the insurance business to live in the woods, being true to himself and making furniture, appearing at odd moments to share his earnest philosophy with Lydia. There's also a Mr. Beebe equivalent, Lydia's godfather, Dr. Melton, who spends a great part of the book wringing his hands over the thought of Lydia becoming trapped in a world where lace curtains and maids in well-turned out aprons at your fashionable card parties are valued more than human relationships. It's hard to see what's so special about Lydia that makes her fate so much more important than anyone else's -- another commonality with Lucy, who at least had some musical talent going for her. I'd love to know if Canfield read Forster. The books diverge in one major way however. Lydia makes the wrong choice, and it's been hammered in to us at such length that it's the wrong choice, that it's hard to summon up enthusiasm to read a couple hundred pages of what one knows will be marital misery. I kept reading only to see if Lydia would be allowed the happy ending of being widowed.

[Laurie Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Competence--I loathe the word! It's used now to cover all imaginable sins, as folks used to excuse all manner of rascality in a good swordsman."

This wasn't my first time through this book but I think I found it just as thought provoking as the first time. I don't know how to sum it up in a way that would catch the attention of the people who should read it - and there are a lot of them!

The book is about businessmen and their wives but much of it was just as applicable to my world.

[Annie Bowlby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dorothy Canfield has a unique gift for getting into people’s minds and hearts and allowing the reader to understand their characters and values. She writes within the current situations of a person’s life, but allows the reader to recognize how the choices made by the characters of her books are based on their individual personalities. And universal human feelings and interactions with others are timeless, so that we feel a kinship with the people in Dorothy’s stories. This book explores the pressures of life within one family and how the protagonist overcomes doubts and depression to make sense of it all. As usual when reading Dorothy Canfield’s writing, I was left with a sense of fulfillment and yet wanting more.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Valuable ideas at work; nuanced, articulate, knowing psychological observations + weavings. But in all (I feel sheepish saying this about any thoughtful, deep person's labor of love) too slow/long and rambling.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. The writing is deeply thoughtful, reflecting the skills of a topnotch storyteller and literary master.