Olive - Week 6

[Lori, Moderator]

The saga continues.

What does Olive decide to do about her feelings for Harold?

What is Olive’s life like in Edinburgh?

We finally meet the famous Aunt Flora. In what ways does Olive feel a kinship with Aunt Flora, and in what ways does she want to be like her?

What secret does Olive learn at the end of this section?

[Robin P, Moderator]

I wanted to bash these characters over the head multiple times in this section. Olive and Harold for not telling each other how they feel, Olive for deciding love is a torment she must endure, Christal for being so arrogant that Olive can never tell her the truth, etc. Not to mention the author!

Olive apparently suddenly remembers art and is a success, but we are to think that's unimportant. Aunt Flora is of course sweet and contented, so Olive decides she should follow that model. Although a big deal is made of how beautiful Flora was and is, whereas Olive we know is so unappealing that nobody could ever think that of her. (Because of a slight deformity and a pale complexion?)

The big secret is the one we all figured out many chapters ago. Again Olive makes herself a martyr to someone else's feelings by deciding she can never tell Christal the truth. (I wonder if somehow it will get out and Christal will undergo a religious conversion as a result?)

[Lori, Moderator]

I also had the impulse to bash several characters' heads together in this section.

[Rosemarie, Moderator]

I'm joining that club! This section was saved by Aunt Flora.

[Abigail]

I didn’t think it was possible, but if anything the prose became even more purple in this section. At times downright incoherent, as here: “She had not pictured the utter blankness of a world wherein Harold was not. The snare broken and her soul escaped, she knew not how it would beat its broken wings in the dun air, meeting nothing but the black, silent waste, ready once more to flutter helplessly down into the alluring death.” Good lord.

Aunt Flora is yet another character brought onstage to further Olive’s story, only to be killed off as soon as she has played her part (I don’t think that’s a spoiler because the narrator says Olive never sees her again after she leaves Edinburgh). I want to start a commune for all the characters cast aside when their usefulness has ended!

I have a theory about that. I don’t know whether this story was written in installments for a periodical the way so many Victorian novels were, but it seems likely to me that it was, and therefore Craik had no opportunity for revision. Perhaps she was a poor planner of her storylines or simply not very good at retaining in her memory details of her characters and scenes, so it was easier simply to kill off characters and invent new ones for the next installment.

[Robin P, Moderator]

Good point - If it was done in installments, each section could be thought of as a self-contained story, so having new characters isn't unreasonable. The Pickwick Papers was like that, until Sam Weller was so popular he had to be brought back.

Still, other writers like Dickens did this much better.

[Abigail]

They certainly did!

[Jenny]

Abigail wrote: "Aunt Flora is yet another character brought onstage to further Olive’s story, only to be killed off as soon as she has played her part (I don’t think that’s a spoiler because the narrator says Olive never sees her again after she leaves Edinburgh)..."

I think once a character has made the contents of their will known in a book like this, it's a foregone conclusion that the end can't be far off!

[Jenny]

Lori wrote: "I also had the impulse to bash several characters' heads together in this section."

Yes, they're all keeping secrets just for the sake of it! But in real life, Christal's position as a minor (she's still in her teens isn't she?) of unknown parentage, no fixed abode and no apparent family would surely have caused no end of bureaucratic problems for her - who is her legal guardian? Wouldn't she have been a ward of court? Miss Vanbrugh seems to have unofficially left Olive to deal with her money, but there don't seem to be any trustees and when Christal decides she wants a horse Olive doesn't seem to have the legal power to deny it to her.
I think Olive is failing in her duty to Christal in keeping vital information from her.

[Jenny]

Robin P wrote: "I wanted to bash these characters over the head multiple times in this section. Olive and Harold for not telling each other how they feel..."

To be fair to Olive, it's perfectly reasonable for her, as a proper Victorian lady, to feel she can't reveal her feelings to Harold. How rational her belief is that, being 'deformed' she can never hope for love, is another matter - but it is a belief she's been encouraged in from her earliest years, so even if not rational it's hardly her fault.

Harold's utterly clot-witted response to learning that Olive is in love, though - who on earth does he think it is? Lyle? You'd think anyone with a modicum of wit, especially one who has already successfully persuaded one woman to marry him, would at least have the gumption to ask a few delicate questions to check whether he might himself possibly be the object of her affections - especially with her standing there telling him he should speak out!

[Trev]

Agony, …..AGONY…….

No not the agony of Olive’s love for Harold, but the agony of reading about the way Olive misses the hints of Harold’s love time and time and time again.

Has Olive now become so overwhelmed by the ‘sweetness of being commanded by him’ that she is also blind to his obvious actions that go way beyond that of a brother?

Just a few examples are….

1. Galloping to the station at the very last minute to see her off on her journey to Scotland.
2. Arriving in Scotland completely out of the blue with the lame excuse that he is ‘on business.’ (What ‘business’ can a layed-off preacher have in Scotland?)
3. Laying ‘heliotrope flowers’ the symbol of ‘eternal love and devotion’ by her breakfast plate.
4. Taking her for a stroll on ‘Lovers Walk.’
5. Using the hackneyed, well worn ruse (probably in use since Roman Times or even before) of having a friend who is madly in love but doesn’t know how to proceed and asking her questions on his behalf.

It might not have been ladylike but when Harold asked her straight what she thought of him she should have subsided into a jelly like state ( similar to how she was most of the time) blubbering about how much she loved him. Happily the book would then have been shorter by many pages. But no, the agony, oh the agony, is yet prolonged.

All through this section, I kept thinking that toyboy Lyle would be much more fun as a husband for Olive than haughty, cold, commanding Harold, even if Olive was devoted to his daughter and his mother. If only Harold would do something atrocious ( yes even more atrocious than being a ‘heathen’) and put Olive off him forever. But surely that is another novel.

[sabagrey]

Trev wrote: "No not the agony of Olive’s love for Harold, but the agony of reading about the way Olive misses the hints of Harold’s love time and time and time again.."

LOL ... when I read this part, I thought that Harold and Olive must have an entry in the Guinness Book for holding the all-time record of misunderstood declarations of love. Tedious ...

[Lori, Moderator]

Trev wrote: "Using the hackneyed, well worn ruse (probably in use since Roman Times or even before) of having a friend who is madly in love but doesn’t know how to proceed and asking her questions on his behalf."

I did somewhat wonder if Lyle had confided in him and Harold was, actually, asking on behalf of his brother-in-law (and partially for himself too, to kill two birds with one stone). But honestly, that might be giving the author too much credit. It was probably just Harold being clumsy and Olive being unwilling to accept that someone could love her.

I also did wonder if Lyle might be a better match for Olive, but she seems unable to see him as a grown man.

[Rosemarie, Moderator]

Lyle certainly is more fun than Harold, but Olive thinks him still a child, as you said, Lori.

[Robin P, Moderator]

It seems that Lyle is intended for Christal, who doesn't deserve him and who is much the opposite of Olive - beautiful, brash, self-centered, mocking, etc.

[Rosemarie, Moderator]

Lyle is too good for Christal-but then just about everybody is too good for Christal!

[Nancy]

I absolutely agree with Robin and Lori about the head-bashing idea. Even allowing for the restrictions placed on women in 19th century courtship, it was soooo irritating that Harold and Olive couldn't have a more straightforward discussion about their feelings. I can almost understand Olive's reticence, given her inexperience; but Harold is really behaving like a dolt. I'm also exasperated by Olive's decision to be the martyr to everyone else's needs, the latest example being Christal. Being of service to others is a good thing, granted, but self-sacrifice to Christal's needs and Harold's needs, etc. seems more like emotional masochism. I had great hopes for this novel at the beginning. The life of a young woman afflicted by a physical disability who rises above the ignorance of the day seemed like an intriguing subject. But we haven't heard anything about Olive's physical issues recently other than a brief comment that it seemed less obvious than when she was a baby. I hate to be so negative, but this novel is a mess. Well, we have a few more chapters for the author to redeem herself.

[Robin P, Moderator]

I suppose Harold's first wife was so aggressive in her courtship that he can't imagine a different kind of relationship? Still just seems like the author is dragging out the story. I read a lot of Regency romances for fun, and just when the characters seem to be coming together, there always has to be something that pushes them apart to increase tension and/or make the book longer. I wonder if this author needed a certain number of chapters.

I don't expect Craik to redeem herself. I think everyone will either be magically converted to true Christianity thanks to Olive's saintly model, or some of them will get bumped off. Maybe Christal will die tragically and at the last minute Olive will tell her the truth and Christal will heroically forgive everyone. Lyle will become a missionary and go out to save the world. Harold will turn into a model preacher. Maybe Olive and Harold will have surprisingly beautiful children. The author makes it seem like Olive is over the hill but she is still under 30. Picturing a wedding night between Olive and Harold is quite unappealing.

My rating for this book has descended from 4 stars to 3 and now to 2. Oh well, I'm still glad we are reading it.

[Lori, Moderator]

By the way, I just watched an interesting video on YouTube that is somewhat relevant to the book: "Victorians were obsessed with ugly children" on Abby Cox's channel. By the way Olive is described in the book, I wouldn't think she'd be considered particularly ugly (just not quite fitting the beauty standards of the time), but this was some interesting insight.

[Robin P, Moderator]

It certainly seems that beauty and health was associated with goodness. Villains are often ugly and deformed. Or there were saintly cripples like Tiny Tim, which I guess is where Olive is supposed to fit.

Women and children in 19th century novels seem to die of "Beautiful Victorian Wasting Disease", where they just get weaker (and saintlier). No ugly or disfiguring symptoms, no messes to clean up. That seems to be what happened to Olive's mother. Others are Dora in David Copperfield, Paul Dombey in Dombey and Son, Jane's friend Helen in Jane Eyre, Beth in Little Women, etc. If anything, Victorians were more intimately familiar with the details of nursing than we are since most people didn't go to the hospital. But they didn't want those sordid details in novels (except maybe for Zola.)

[Jenny]

Robin P wrote: "It certainly seems that beauty and health was associated with goodness. Villains are often ugly and deformed. Or there were saintly cripples like Tiny Tim, which I guess is where Olive is supposed ..."

The trouble is, our author can't bring herself to make her heroine actually 'ugly and deformed'. She's given her some slight technical imperfection that doesn't impinge on her life in any way and, beyond the fact that her spine isn't quite straight we know nothing about how it affects her appearance; there doesn't seem to be anything amiss with her face or her looks in any other way.
All we know is that her parents believed her to be unmarriageable and that she has taken on this belief unquestioningly.

[Robin P, Moderator]

All the talk about women's roles and Olive's art being less important got me wondering if other books of the era were the same. I suddenly remembered one which is the direct opposite - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, written 2 years before Olive also featuring a woman artist. In that book, (view spoiler)[Helen is an artist who supports herself and her son. She has a disappointing marriage but eventually leaves it (hide spoiler)]. Tenant is considered maybe the first feminist novel and has a lot to say about women's education and roles in society and the problems of marriage. So interesting that these were published at about the same time!

[Abigail]

That is quite a contrast, Robin, between this book and Tenant! Poor Olive (and, I suspect, Dinah Craik) would have a coronary if she read a book like that!

[sabagrey]

Robin P wrote: "All the talk about women's roles and Olive's art being less important got me wondering if other books of the era were the same. I suddenly remembered one which is the direct opposite - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,."

I agree with most of what you say - but have to add that Helen is an artist for money's sake as much or even more so than Olive. There's not one word said about genius in 'Tenant'.

So for all the differences between the two books, and the 'Tenant''s superiority, the view of women as artists is similar.

[Robin P, Moderator]

sabagrey wrote: "Robin P wrote: "All the talk about women's roles and Olive's art being less important got me wondering if other books of the era were the same. I suddenly remembered one which is the direct opposit..."

Good point, I didn't remember the details of Helen's work.

[Trev]

sabagrey wrote: "Robin P wrote: "All the talk about women's roles and Olive's art being less important got me wondering if other books of the era were the same. I suddenly remembered one which is the direct opposit..."

Leaving aside the men they first chose to love, I can’t think of two more dissimilar women in Victorian fiction as Helen and Olive.

What this discussion does bring to light is the relative skills of the two writers when depicting their heroines as ‘artists.’

For example, in ‘Olive’ the heroine’s skill as an artist seems to me just an appendage to hang round her neck and bring back into the the light from time to time.

In ‘Tenant’ not only are Helen’s artistic endeavours integral to the plot, but at times they are used to generate elements of suspense and intrigue.
Two examples are (spoiler warning for those who have not read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)
(view spoiler)[ the painting turned to the wall, as well as the fictitious initials on her painting of Wildfell Hall, noticed by Gilbert when visiting Helen’s makeshift studio…….
and the cliff top meeting between Helen and Gilbert when Helen is sketching.

For some reason, that meeting always seems to spring into my mind when ‘Tenant’ is mentioned. (hide spoiler)]

[sabagrey]

Trev wrote: What this discussion does bring to light is the relative skills of the two writers when depicting their heroines as ‘artists.’."

Very early on in this book I got the impression that Craik had no idea of painting, and thus was not able to describe what Olive actually *did*. The tools and paintings are no more than stage props.

Whereas the Brontë sisters (all?) did drawings and watercolours, and had a brother who was a painter. - Anne B. had her protagonist do watercolours, because that is what she knew herself, could describe, and integrate into her story.

Olive paints in oil, and I wonder whether Craik spent a single day in an artist's studio to get to know the work? - At one point, she has Olive dab some additional spots on a finished painting - as if there were no such thing as a varnish!