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Gina
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Apr 10, 2009 08:02PM
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I have! I went on a reading frenzy and read it in about 4 days...
Ok, I am in chapter nine -- Betty is in England and has had her first experience of Stornham. All I can say is poor Rosalie! She was married into quite a situation. The story may reveal answers to my questions, but, do you think her parents were naive like her in many ways and allowed this marriage to take place very casually? They were so powerful and wealthy, it seems they would have needed to know more about this man before the marriage took place. (They desperately needed Aunt Augusta conducting scary interviews with suitors in the library like in Importance of Being Earnest.)
So if it turns out they were just impressed with the glittering (???) English title, for 12 years, so far, they had completely lost their daughter and their own heirs (grandchildren) into oblivion.?
You also get an image of these crumbling estates as places women go and never crawl out of -- kind of gothic.
So what did Anstruthers really want? Just some money he could run through?
Well, the book has me hooked -- I have to know more!
That is a great issue to point out, Sarah - Rosalie's family knows how naive she is (even 12 year old Betty has an inkling of this), so why did they allow the marriage to happen at all? Perhaps they saw her naivete as an affectation of youth rather than as a personality trait, which it clearly was.
Along similar lines, perhaps their abandonment of Rosalie fell into the Edwardian version of "she never calls me" syndrome. People get hurt feelings when friends and family never call, but also do not pick up the phone and call themselves out of frustration resulting from the hurt feelings.
It is strange because Rosalie's family is so rich and powerful - they could have packed up their steamer trunks and taken the Shuttle to England at any time!
One last point: I believe, at least at the beginning of the marriage, that they were getting letters from Anstruthers encouraging them NOT to visit or contact Rosalie. He hints that she has forgotten them and is distracted by her new life in England.
Well, I am finished with Chap 18 (the Red Godwyn chapter, which I like -- I like stories within stories.)I don't believe we will find out anything more about the Vanderpoel parents -- the story has left them behind, hasnt it? I guess Frances is presenting the new generation moreso.
Does anyone have an opinion of the villain at this point -- Nigel?
Burnett's introduction of this circle of characters is something else that I like. I guess that reminds me of her children's works. I also like that she wasn't afraid to flesh out these characters. It seems you find a lot of novels where the people walk on to fill a space, but you dont learn about them, there may not even be any significant dialog including the characters.
This may not be a weighty novel by today's standards, but I can see why she earned such popularity.
Abby, I would have thought the wealthy of this set would have been traveling Europe constantly and popping in on Anstruthers Manor all the time! I think Frances varied this detail away from the realistic to create her atmosphere -- like we've said before -- we wouldnt have had a story otherwise, right? ha ha
What a lark! I happened to order "The Shuttle" from the library and then a few days later ran into you folks reading it. Serendipity, I think.I'm about to Chapter 30 and am just loving it. I've read some Victorian Lit. in the past and as much as I've loved it, a lot of the stuff just drags along. This book doesn't. It keeps going and new and wonderful things keep happening. I won't give any of that away but I do want to mention Betty Vanderpoel. She's pretty much a marvel. She has everything and is clever and beautiful topped onto that. I feel I should hate her (she's so good!) but I can't and I don't. The farther the book goes on, the more and more I like her. Making a truly good character is tough- and making us like her...well...so I wanted to ask...any ideas how Burnett makes us love Betty instead of loathe her? Lots of authors try to pull off good girls but it just becomes a caricature. I think Betty skirts near that at times and just barely manages to pull up. Of course, maybe there's some dislike of Betty out there...and if you do, why? Maybe Burnett does get too close and Betty turns into a type instead of a person.
Catherine, so glad to meet you and so glad you are enjoying The Shuttle -- ME too. I will now have to go back and pour over my thoughts on Betty V.
I will go ahead and say that, for me, what keeps Betty from being too overbearing of a character is that she is doing all this for a noble reason -- to save the life actually of her sister (because she was fading away basically) and preserve a future for her nephew. She didn't wheel herself off to England to prove how important she is or how powerful -- she went to find a sister who had been taken from her for 12 years. I would like to think I could do the same if needed. Ya know?
[I was trying to be careful about spoilers too, because I didn't know if we were all ready for them.:] :)
Like you 2 ladies, I didn't dislike Betty at all. It seemed to me as though, when Burnett the narrator is describing her as an adult, she tells us mostly of Betty's good sense and judgment rather than her beauty. I tended to forget about her looks until the point of view shifted to Nigel, and I read his sleazy thoughts. He seemed to be the only one who overtly sexualized her. The townspeople and G. Selden didn't seem to value her as a "hot chick." When we, the reader, hear their internal dialogs, they respond to Betty's words rather than good looks. Even Dunstan, who is clearly deeply in love with and attracted to her, does not sexualize her the way Nigel does.
By doing this, I think Burnett did a great job of creating a character who may, by chance, be beautiful, but would be just fine in the world if she were not. I don't know if this made me like her, but it certainly made me respect her.
Oh, absolutely, Elizabeth. You are right, Nigel is SO repugnant! All the men around Betty clearly know she is gorgeous, but are more drawn in by her calm, sensible reasoning. Nigel seems to view her as an object to simply consume, use up, then throw away, as he did her sister. Other people celebrate the fire that burns in Betty, but Nigel wants to be the one to extinguish it.Did anyone have a particular point at which they saw no redemption for Nigel? For me, it was when it is revealed that his violent abuse of his wife caused deformity in his own son. (shudder)
What a vile character.
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I loved this book...such a well-constructed story, and the characters were so complex.
Welcome to the group, Catherine! What a coincidence you had just gotten The Shuttle from the library--it's not exactly a well-known book, which is a shame.
Sarah--I agree with you--I think Betty is a very likeable character because she is so selfless--she came over to England just to rescue her sister. She's just so sweet and generous, I find it impossible to hate her!
In regards to Nigel--he was thoroughly despicable! Elizabeth, good point about Nigel's qualities--he really embodied all things villanous.
Abby--regarding your question--"did anyone have a particular point at which they saw no redemption for Nigel?" - I think you're exactly right. By adding that information about the cause of their son's deformity, Burnett showed us that Nigel was truly evil and beyond redemption.
Discussing Nigel and the different characters--I think that Nigel also showed us a certain type of person -- rather than English, American, English-American, etc. He was simply the person who had inherited huge potential -- land, reputation (potential anyway), potential to help people (the people in his own village at the very least) and he cared for absolutely none of it -- only for himself. He used all this to entice a wealthy bride, but only to use her money for himself. He was really person floating without purpose.
So it seems that all of her other characters in contrast -- Burnett makes very human AND shows where they fall within life. Rosalie was also a person without much purpose, and she fell prey to this man. Betty grew up in the same environment but had a spark which was encouraged and she became very self-sufficient. Saltyr was born into the same environment as Nigel (the crumbling legacy) but chose the struggle to try to make something of his life. He is also an interesting character that he has faced a great failure at this point (his failure in America) and he admits it and is on the edge of trying again. In this light, he is really on one accord with G Seldon -- on to Gina's other thread ---- ha ha
Isnt this great?
