Monday, July 19, 2010

Uncertain Summer--1972


Uncertain Summer, to be understood fully, should be cross-referenced with The Hasty Marriage. I know that many of you are not big fans of the later book (Betty JoDee, I'm looking at you). One protagonist falls in love with the wrong person right out of the gate, is casual to the point of rudeness to the person who loves him, is jilted, contracts a MOC, and learns to love again. The Hasty Marriage, told from the perspective of Laura (the innocent party trying to make her husband fall in love with her), it is a difficult read (I still love it, Betty JoDee. ;P). Uncertain Summer is the exact same plot but told from the perspective of the jilted fiancee (this time a female). She must make do with her MOC and The Great Betty treats everyone so gently that Serena (blind for an awfully long time) isn't someone you want to hit in the head with a brick too much (as some wish to do with Reilof throughout THM--he's nasty where she is thoughtless).
Also, can I get a shout-out for the cover art?

Serena Potts, a 24-year-old Casualty and Accident nurse, has just been hit on. She must get that a lot. She's a petite, dark-haired dish.
Hey, baby, am I having a heart attack or did I just fall in love?
Sweetheart, am I dyin
g? Because you sure look like an angel. Etc., etc.
The man with the smashed up leg and smashed up E-Type Jag looks up from his delirium and says, "What a beautiful little gypsy girl." Of course, he had the good taste to say it in Dutch first, establishing his Hot Foreign Guy bona fides. (An accent instantly making a man gain one full grade level above similar domestic brands.) His name is Laurens van Amstel and he is a doctor from Zierikzee, Holland.
Could this be our hero lying romantically prone on the Cas room gurney? Alas, no. Driving the wrong way down a one way street and wrecking an auto that, along with Shakespeare and the Magna Carta, ranks as a cultural endowment of the Sovereign Nation of Great Britain to the Peoples of the World does not a hero make.
So if he's not the hero he must be The Fink.
In a manner not calculated to make me think well of my sex, Serena promptly loses her head and her heart.
Crossing the hospital lobby at the end of her shift she spots a beat-up Mini. Ah. There's our hero unfolding himself from its Lilliputian cavity. It's Laurens' cousin. Gijs van Amstel. And if Laurens is The Destroyer then Gijs is The Builder.
Before we know it, Laurens is rushing Nurse Potts off her sensible feet. Oblique references to True Love (in caps with hearts and arrows drawn metaphorically around it) and his hope (demand) that she drop everything and spend eternity in his embrace does not make her gag. Maybe an unusually heavy breakfast is keeping all that bile down...Everybody has their own way of expressing misgivings of the glib-tongued charmer but my favorite is Staff Nurse Joan. "But ducky, be your age..."
In the mean time, Gijs-what's-his-name (for that is how she thinks of him and (mortifyingly) treats him) travels to and from Holland and allows Laurens to use him as a remote Taxi service. He takes Serena to her home (no small distance) and fetches her back again and all she can do is moon over Laurens and be as casually dismissive to Gijs as possible. Happily, as far as rudeness goes, this is Serena's high water mark.
Editorial Note:
I grant you that Reilof's intentional awfulness in The Hasty Marriage was way worse than Serena's amateurish efforts but both protagonists are coming from the same place emotionally.
Laurens asks Serena to come to Holland and quit her job. Is he proposing? It sounds awfully like it but, like some elusive wad of Flubber, he is difficult to pin down. For his part, Gijs is furious at his cousin for snaring Serena. He knows it won't work out and Laurens is playing ducks and drakes with with everybody's happiness.
I have to skip a ton but while in England, Gijs is very kind to Serena and lets Laurens take the credit for his thoughtfulness. He charms her family, most particularly Mrs. Potts. Also, for the first time you see Serena as a worthwhile person when she wishes she could strangle the life out of a baby beater. Gijs sees it too and I'm happy he finally has a rational reason to love her.
But the days until she travels to Holland are counting down. While shopping for her trip she gets involved in an accident on The Underground (Can I call it The Tube? Am I allowed?). Gijs is there to patch her up (a lovely symbol of his role in the tale) with 8 tiny stitches by her eyebrow.
When Laurens (on his leg again and driving the inevitable (and possibly doomed) E-Type Jag) shows up to collect her, the best he can muster is "Hey babe, the disfiguring scar had better fade."
Against Gijs' advice (who I imagine was sick with worry to think of placing Serena in Laurens' careless care), he drives her home to Zierikzee. Serena gets a chilly welcome from the darkened house and an even chillier one the next morning from his dipped-in-formaldehyde mother.
Serena: Why does you mother think this is going to be a short visit? We're getting married, right?
Laurens: Did that disfiguring scar affect your brain? Cool it babe. Even though I implied enough devotion for you to quit your job and traverse a major body of water doesn't mean I'm ready to power down my Acme Wild-Oat Sower.
Serena is confused by his distant manner and when an elegant blonde shows up at a party she is convinced that Laurens is playing the field.
Serena: Who is she?
Gijs:...an only child--poor girl. I'm sorry for only children, aren't you?
S: Yes I think I am.
G: Ah, at last I have found something about myself in which you can show some interest--I am an only child.
She said woodenly, not caring in the least: I'm sorry. Did you find it very lonely?
It helps, if you don't want to rattle the teeth right out of her, to remember her real and spontaneous care over the battered baby. She's got feelings but isn't' capable of civility today.
When Serena happens upon Laurens and Adriana (trust me, she's not worth our time) in a public clinch, it is Gijs who rushes in with an implausible explanation. What's that cousin of mine doing, kissing my girl?
But Serena is so relieved that she fails to see the cracks in his Piecrust of Falsehood.
Such a shame that so delicate a pastry is doomed to shatter. When Serena discovers an irrefutable piece of evidence that Laurens is The Fink King (snogging in the garden with what's-her-name) she turns on her heel and runs up the driveway. If only Gijs would be there!
Wasn't Adriana his girl? Didn't he tell her there was nothing going on? To which he replies with the best line ever. "Lies, wicked lies." Betty Kylene made a sampler for me (see left) sharing just that homily. (Above and beyond the call of Betty.) If I were a neglected wife of Neelsdom, I would do more samplers in this vein while sitting in the soft glow of a pink lampshade...
Gijs becomes her bulwark against further humiliations (as though he knew Laurens would not turn out well), collects her things, proposes to her and takes her to his parents' house--which is, in contrast to Laurens' Fudgesicle mother's house, a haven of welcome and kindness.
Editor's Note:
The Great Betty doesn't just whip through this episode. Mother van Amstel is especially darling. Betty takes time with everything and, thus, makes the happy ending happier. With in-laws like these...
But I digress...He proposes to her!? Standard pre-nup pep talk:
I don't like you like that. I'm not batting for the other team. (Yes, allusions to his 'normal man'-ness.) We'll be great friends. (Yada, yada, yada--I love you forever.)
She thinks it over which is when you know that she never really loved The Fink King in the first place. How could she contemplate moving to the same town and marrying his cousin/partner if she had a speck of real feeling for him? How could this girl, who surely doodled Mrs. Serena van Amstel, marry someone with the exact same name? Sure, Gijs is her safe harbor but if that's all it was, wild horses couldn't send her back to Zierikzee.
They travel back to England and stay at the home of Hugo and Sarah van Elvens (Fate is Remarkable--Meet the twins!). Upon reaching her home, she agrees to marry him only when he gets in his car to go. Gijs, you can't go! (Which ought to have told her something.)
At The Big Fat British Wedding (Gijs insists!) Laurens rates an invitation (so imagining Camilla Parker Bowles glowering at Princess Di in her heirloom lace) which would be reason to lace up the trainers and run, run, run from the van Amstel family. But when all is said and done, Gijs screeches into a lay-by for a bit of post-matrimonial snogging. "I haven't thanked you properly for [the pearls] yet--they're fabulous." He pulled into the side of the road and stopped the car. "Do thank me properly," he begged, and turned to her, a wicked gleam in his eyes. Hmmm. That affable union is not without compensations.
They settle down so well. He may have a hidden passion for her but he's not moody or aloof. He gives her a Basset hound named Gus, he lets her come on his rounds, they share a life. But always in the background is the lurking psychopath in the woods--Laurens. He finally comes back to work in the practice and, while Serena is happily substituting for a missing receptionist, he tears a strip off her. "I don't really think you mean to speak to my wife in that fashion, do you?" (President Andrew Jackson fought a duel on less provocation.) Laurens proves himself more boring to Serena than yesterday's leftovers. When did that happen?
Soon after, Gijs has a home delivery to attend that goes on until dawn. We are given what is one of the sweetest dawning realizations in all of Neelsdom--doubly treasured as Serena was so unworthy of his regard in the early stages. When Serena fetches Gijs tea, she sees the harsh early morning sun show up lines and furrows on his face and she suddenly knows that Laurens is hardly a flicker of a glimmer of a shadow of a speck. She loves her husband. Now what to do?
Gijs begins avoiding her--almost the first time he has been anything less than natural and candid. It is my contention that he senses some change in her and does not trust his self-control. Remember, he is a 'normal man'.
Here's the rest of the book in bullet points:
  • Little Timmy is trapped in a well...er...no. Rather, a couple of children (why is it always children, Betty? Why?!) get trapped in the famously rotted sub-floors of Holland. Serena to the rescue!
  • Gijs gets a few calls from Adriana--Who? Oh, yes, the blonde plot device.
  • Tante Emilie (Laurens' embalmed mother), drawing her snobbery around her like a too small shawl on a too cold day, queers Serena's pitch by implying that Adriana (who really cares about Adriana?) loves Gijs...if only he were free.
  • Oh, and Betty thumbed through her Atlas and found Laurens' a 'very good post in Pittsburgh'. ( I am not here to say anything bad about Pittsburgh but do you really think that a Fink King like Laurens' would seek a job in the Rust Belt? Methinks Betty closed her eyes and spun the globe on this one.)
  • Serena, her addition faulty (2+2=5), convinces herself that Gijs needs to be free.
So, she ups and offs to England only to find Gijs in Hugo and Sarah's parlor. Explanations follow. Adriana needed Gijs to give her some vaccinations for her move to Pittsburgh. (Get your own husband, toots!) Also, he tells her that he fell in love with her at first sight in the hospital lobby and determined to marry her on the way to Laurens' room. How adorable is that?
Kisses and a planned week at Hugo's Scotland cottage. (Which has seen a lot of implied conjugal relations.)
The End

Rating: Lashings of whipped cream.
And thank heavens for it. Betty Debbie and I made most of our July posts have something to do with Summer and most of the books were very ho-hum. How bleak was my Neels in July. How joyful I was then to dive into this one. Serena isn't an idiot. She's human and a little slow. The whole first half is her constructing her own gallows. The second act is her marching up them. Gijs is perfect from beginning to end. We get a lot of his point of view. He's waiting for Serena but rarely retreats into that aloof shell that most RDDs adopt. He grins. He kisses. I. Love. Him.
Laurens is also a credible villain. A Daisy Buchanan type--reckless and feckless, he adores being adored. I didn't buy Tante Emilie's sudden machinations at the end but I shan't quibble.
I skipped so many fun details that it kills me.

Food: Corn flakes, creme brulee, ham off the bone, new potatoes, apple pie and cream, a Charlotte Russe that falls apart on the night of their first dinner party, Gorkas Norge (Cucumber and anchovies and cream cheese and sour cream and caviar. I triple-dog-dare Betty Debbie to make this.), Pott's Point Fish Pot (which I cannot take seriously), Bavarian Cream, and rookworst.

Fashion: Clotted cream pleated skirt, corn-colored dress, Laurens' over-fussy dress shirt, her dream wedding dress (organza and a little net veil), her actual wedding dress (cream silk with tight sleeves and a high round neck and her mother's veil), a peach pink chiffon, cream gauze dress over silk with a pink velvet sash, and a little pink suit (with straw hat) to simultaneously lift her spirits and run away from her husband in.

26 comments:

  1. Betty Kylene: I'd like to place an order for "Lies, Wicked Lies". Very awesome.

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  2. Betty Debbie, I will queue it up. Betty Keira, no you can't call it "the tube" but I can.

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  3. I think in honor of the stunning--notice the spider web--sampler by Betty Kylene, winner of the coveted Delftware Cup for Neels action above and beyond the call of duty, we should rename the book, "Lies, Wicked Lies"--we'd remember the title much better.

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  4. A thought - does a clotted cream pleated skirt got under both food and fashion?

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  5. I guess I will have to get ahold of this one, but I hope I like it better than The Hasty Marriage--won't take much. She sounds like as much a goob as the despised Reilof, maybe not as nasty. Here goes a credit on paperbookswap . . . .

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  6. I am dying for your review. I think you'll like it MUCH better.

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  7. I'm weeping. I'm weeping REAL tears of something or other. I hate this book. HATE. I liked Serena okay, I guess. I liked Gijs a lot, and yes his parents are delightful. But the plot. Oh, the plot! Frankly, when the kids fall through the floor, it's comedy relief!

    And you know that Fate is Remarkable is my favorite Betty Neels, so when I say I hate a book that has 1½ episodes with Hugo & Sarah it's bad.

    Here's the problem. Serena makes NO sense. None. She's swept off her feet by Laurens when there are signs of his unworthiness about as big as the London Eye. Girlfriend, he's an RTA-happy numbskull. Are you so hard up for a schmuck boyfriend that you have to believe this blowhard? You're an Outlier! Housemen go soft in the knees when you walk by! Do you really have to take up with a guy who will -- not if but when -- get you killed?

    I actually had to skip clumps of pages because that set-up is nearly unbearable. And then, as if Laurens wasn't bad enough, we get his hateful mother. Embalming is too good for her.

    Okay, so I might as well tear out the first half of the book, or at least redact all the bits that don't have Gijs in them. But the second half is just a so-so MOC plot. It insults my intelligence to suggest that what Serena did with Laurens is even remotely like what Sarah did with the hateful Steven in Fate is Remarkable. She dated a reasonable guy in the hospital for THREE years before he dumped her to marry the boss's daughter. That's a far cry from falling for a bad boy in three weeks flat.

    So Serena is a total ninnyhead for ⅔ of the book, and then she agrees to marry Gijs and she's still a ninnyhead for thinking that Laurens might be the one on the phone, calling her to get her back. That just hurts. Serena eventually gets a grip ("I'd like to buy a clue, please, Pat?") and falls properly in love with her husband, but then gets confused about a vaccination? Lame, Oh Great Betty. Lame-O.

    I'm glad Gijs got the girl of his dreams. He should probably have someone look at that split personality of hers...

    Beans on toast (my lowest rating as you know, but only because you don't acknowledge the nastiness known as Marmite) for the first half; treacle tart for the second half. Even Gijs on his own only gets Boeuf en Croute.

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  8. About the Tube. Not all of the Underground is deep enough to be called The Tube. But I have a feeling Betty Henry is the only person who knows which lines are The Tube and which are "just" the Underground.

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  9. I think it's in our bylaws, Betty Magdalen, that if you disagree with a review most vilely that you are asked, nay, required to be as passionate as you were about it.

    Friend, I salute you...and your poor judgment ;0)

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  10. I agree that the best part of this book is meeting Sarah and Hugo again. Serena is pretty dense, and all of Laurens family needs to a good dunking.

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  11. Oh, and another thing that PROVES Betty Keira wrong (as if I needed anything more...) -- How is it that Serena is a spineless masochist with Laurens, willing to hang around seemingly forever just in case he transmogrifies into a decent human being . . . but with Gijs, Serena runs like a scared rabbit (which is at least a vertebrate) back to England at the merest whiff of maybe there's something wrong?

    Let me put that another way -- why couldn't Serena have had a huge dose of the doubts back at the hospital before she turned her life upside down? What was so all-fire trustworthy about Laurens' line that she could just ASSUME he was going to marry her, but when Gijs is ACTUALLY married to her she can't stand still long enough to ask the key question(s).

    And don't give me any of that "Oh, but with Gijs it really matters..." nonsense, Betty Keira! That's not the book The Great Betty wrote. She presents it that Serena's in love with Laurens. Really *in love*.

    Let's review the bidding, shall we? She's so convinced that a man who hasn't actually proposed will do so (contrast that with the scenes where the RDD so assumes and Araminta says, not unreasonably, "You haven't asked me yet.") that she quits her job and moves to Holland. But then Gijs actually proposes and actually marries her (which, if the chit had had two brain cells to rub together, should have meant a LOT given how thoroughly she'd proven her lack of judgment), and she somehow can't trust in him.

    You know, the more I think about it, it's a darn good thing those kids fell through the floor (sorry, Plot Device Kids) because otherwise, I'd see Serena as a younger version of one of those bone-idle, selfish widows in the Later Canon who make the heroine do everything AND give up her wages just so that Mumsy can buy an expensive scarf. But I figure Gijs will sort Serena out, and she's his headache now.

    (Hey, Founding Bettys -- is that enough dissension from the ranks? I can do more if you like ...)

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  12. I think Laurens' family was just enjoyably awful for me and a wonderful contrast with Serena's future in-laws so that didn't bug me much.

    Also, Serena does think she's in love with Laurens--it's the BIg Show as far as she's concerned which means, in her limited understanding, the better and worse, richer and poorer, gentle and caddish bits. That she is a fool is indisputable and though you might not understand it I, at least, have watched lovely and intelligent girls with nice manners throw themselves away on men who cultivate (as was said of George Sanders once) 'caddishness of Homeric proportions'.

    And the whole throwing her career over for Laurens thing is explained by Laurens being sneaky and misleading. She followed where he put the breadcrumbs...

    Mostly I love this book because you really feel how much happiness hangs in the balance for Gijs--he's almost destroyed by Laurens and the contrast between them is stark and sustained.

    P.S. Anyone who sends me Christmas cookies is allowed to dissent to their heart's content.

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  13. (Glad the cookies worked! I can be caddish to Homeric proportions...)

    But, as wonderful as Gijs is (and I take marks off for his doormattish approach to squiring Serena around while letting her think it was Laurens's thoughtfulness - there's a difference between "nobody likes a tattle-tale" and "would it kill me to mention that I just thought it would be nice to help a girl out?")(but I add points back in for his being willing to drive away and NEVER SEE HER AGAIN), why oh why would you wish that damp dishrag of a dunderhead on him?

    I can take snappish heroines and surly RDDs, but stupid always always always pisses me off. And Serena is unforgivably stupid.

    Whew. That was fun. Gotta go finish Britannia All at Sea, which has a pretty surly RDD...

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  14. Betty Barbara here--
    Well, that sure perked up my snowy Friday! I'm mostly with Betty Magdalen on this one. Serena the Stupid I called her. She falls for a pretty face and starts building air castles. It doesn't help that she is too old to be doing this! And it takes her forever to wake up and smell the coffee. Gijs is wonderful, and maybe, in two or three years time, Serena will be worthy of him. He obviously seems something in her that we don't(yet).

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  15. I love what Magdalen said about this one, bu I have to substitute Vegemite for Marmite, as a good Aussie girl!

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  16. I definitely agree with Betty Magdalen.

    I have read almost every book in the cannon at least twice. This is one I read probably 10 years ago and hated because Serena was so stupidly annoying.

    After re-reading, here's my take:

    1. Serena is a Rector's daughter. Though she may be 24, she is very innocent to the ways of the wicked world and takes sentiments at face value. In other words, she had no idea that Laurens would just as soon take her to Brighton for the weekend and high tail it back to Holland without a second thought.

    Did anyone else get the interlude when Laurens says, "we could have spent the weekend together, baby and had a great time" and Serena hears, "I would have loved to have spent the weekend at the Rectory with you gardening, but my Jag is totaled"?

    I think Laurens had a great time reeling her in because she was so different from the women who "understand" what he means. I mean, who quits their job on such a flimsy future? I love what Mrs. Potts said, "she loves with both hands". That is not a bad thing.

    2. I am a huge fan of Gijs as well, but have a few bones to pick with him:

    a. His acting on Lauren's behalf actually aided her falling more for him. If he would have left her alone to see that Laurens did not "feel like coming over" and did not send her flowers and did not arrange rides for her, she might have thought, "Hmm....this guy says he cares but does nothing AND will likely kill me if I take too many rides with him". I think Gijs did more harm than good here. What did his mother say, "Love dies when it is not cared for."

    b. Why could he not have warned Serena about Laurens and Adriana? As her friend, he could have given her a heads up about Laurens' ACME Wild Oats Machine. I know this would have been a balancing act because he would have to risk her hating him for interfering, but doesn't love do what's best for the other person? But he lets her walk into a nightmare. I think it was too self-serving on Gijs' part.

    c. Why all the secrecy about the phone calls and late nights out to see Adriana (it was only a vaccination)? Why let her fall into Tante Emilie's vindictive snare? She should NEVER have to return to that house. I know Gijs has great awesomeness, but after snagging her I don't think he took good care of her.

    But I do love the big Brit Wedding!!! Most MOCs get the quiet, just a few witnesses deal. Makes you wonder if Gijs had dreamed of his wedding day?

    Oh, and loved how Sara van Elven saved the day.

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  17. It's shocking to read my comments years later. Wow. Just wow. I'm a shrew.

    ::cackles wildly::

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  18. The only comment on my Betty Neels spreadsheet is "bad". The whole vaccination thing is ridiculous and the characters range from dumb (Serena) to loutish (Laurens) to self-martyring (Gijs) to pitiable (Laurens' mom).

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    1. G a s p ! Betty Kathy! "Bad"? It. Is. Not.
      Serena may have been a little naive. Definitely has been. It happens. People in love... But she is not dumb. Laurens did intimate that he wanted to marry her. She may be forgiven for believing in him.
      As for Gijs, he is one of the loveliest heroes. ❤️ sigh

      Laurens - loutish, yes.
      His mother - arrogant, conceited, stuck up, etc., etc. ...

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  19. This is a delight to re-read. I didn't appreciate it the first time round. Everything said in the review is so true but I like Gijs so much, he makes the book a winner. Long may the Great Betty's books reign!

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  20. In case anyone is having a bad day, here is a picture of Gus the basset hound puppy :) : tinyurl.com/bdhuj453
    Evie

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  21. So many unanswered questions, especially in the beginning. Why was Lauren’s in England? Why was he going the wrong way down a one-way street? Was he drunk? Why was he so insistent that Serena quit her job? Why is he still living with his mother? Why would he bring Serena to stay with his mother? Why did he expect Gijs to do his bidding? Why would a RDD borrow a beat-up mini instead of renting a Rolls Royce? Most of all, why was Gijs wearing SHABBY TWEEDS? Was that a “going to England” outfit that he threw on for the trip, or did they come with the beat-up Mini? He was never seen in anything shabby (or for that matter tweed) again. And, at the end of the book Gijs KNEW that Serena was running away to Sarah’s, and he knew that she didn’t know about the whole vaccination business, but instead of talking to her about it he let her do all of the angsty running away and traveling. This has never been a favorite of mine, but I did enjoy it more through the lens of “The Hasty Marriage” (which I like much better.)

    Thank you Founding Bettys for continuing this site for those of us who don’t do Facebook.

    Betty Meridith

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  22. Tell me why, why, why
    Tell me why
    Why do birds sing so gay?
    And lovers await the break of day
    Why do they fall in love?
    Why does the rain fall from above?
    Why do fools fall in love?
    Why do they fall in love?

    Betty Meredith, Betty Neels will not explain it all for you. These are deep mysteries of the universe that each of us must answer on our own soul level, after intense meditation into the canon.
    Almost EVERY Betty book leaves us with questions like this, with the result that we wast—spend a surprising amount of brain space on these stories long after we’ve finished reading them. A gift that keeps on giving.
    For example, why in Cassandra by Chance, or maybe it was the one with the Rat Ward—are there two characters named Jan? These books are pretty short on auxiliary characters, M&B could have sprung for another, even if less easily pronounceable, name.
    Why, (I’ve asked this before and it still strikes me as strange) in the very first entry, Sister Peters in Amsterdam, does Adelaide think, on page 7, after getting her first really good look at Dr. van Essen, “His nose was decidedly beaky; she wondered why he wore glasses.” Who wonders *why* a person wears glasses? They wear them because they need them. How many times do you (assuming "you" are not an optician or an eye dr. or otherwise particularly attuned to eye problems) meet someone who wears glasses and wonder, "Gee, are they farsighted or nearsighted? Do they have an astigmatism or strabismus?" I wonder where they got their frames and how much they cost. Yeah, *later on* after working with him she notices that he only uses one eye but at this point she was just enjoying “his quiet, unhurried voice…[and] his face.”
    And why is it that while a number of the heroes wear glasses, neither Aramintas nor Olivias nor even outliers ever do? (Did Bertha have a squint or was that her brightly attired cousin?)
    Why, in Heaven is Gentle--the one with fairylike Eliza Proudfoot-- why is the flat fiancee Estelle at the RDD’s house for the duration of that medical study? Is any explanation even offered? Was it normal in their—or anyone’s—social circle to hang around one's fiance's house for extended periods? (Ok, lots of chaperonage, and an RDD’s mansion is not, heaven forbid, Brighton, but still...). Oher than to allow her to be matched up with the other professor, it made no sense.
    The Founding Bettys could have made another category after Food and Clothing: Imponderables.

    B. Baersma

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    1. Lol Betty Baersma! I just finished rereading Cassandra by Chance, which I love (having skipped Winter of Change, one of the few Betty books where I disliked both main characters) and I was again confused by the two Jans. I agree with your comment on the glasses. A very strange thought to have, right up there with the one where the PBN thought it was no wonder the doctor wanted to date pretty girls, since his mother was so plain.
      I like your suggestion for an Imponderables category. What fun we could all have with that!

      Betty Meridith

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    2. Betty Meridith (sorry for spelling it wrong before), i noticed you made a similar observation about fiancees-as-long-term-guests regarding Wanda hanging around Sir William's house in "The Redheaded Cook, the RBD, His Daughter, and the Veronica" -- the Neelsian Hayes Office had a very strange moral code book!
      B. Baersma

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  23. Well, excuse me if this printed twice, because it looked like it didn't print at all.
    B. Baersma

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