Excellent Women (1952) by Barbara Pym #SpinsterSeptember

❤ Spinsters and clergymen seem to always be center in most of Barbara Pym's novels. My first Pym was Some Tame Gazelle, which I found suited my taste. Excellent Women, my last pick of this year's #SpinterSeptember (hosted by @pearjelly_) is no different.

❤ Mildred Lathbury is in her thirties, a spinster, and a clergyman's daughter. She rents a furnished room in a respectable household, and is counted as one of the excellent women of the parish. Excellent women here means the kind of women who perform small but meaningful duties in the service of churches and voluntary organization and are usually taken for granted (especially by men).

❤ The narrow and peaceful existence of Miss Lathbury is about to be thoroughly stirred by the arrival of three strangers: Rockingham (Rocky) and Helena Napier, and the young widow Mrs. Allegra Gray The Napiers live in the downstairs room of the same house where Mildred lives. Rocky is a charming man to whom women used to be drawn to, while Helena is a anthropologist - an interesting career of a woman in the field usually dominated by men, at least in 1950s. Mildred notices from the first that Helena is much more excited to discuss things with her colleague Everard Bone, than to converse with her husband. Her work seems to alienates her husband, who would usually visit Mildred where he expects to be offered a cup of tea or coffee.

❤ Unwittingly, Mildred becomes more involved in others' lives. The Napiers, Everard Bone - whom she disliked at first, but changed her mind when she met him at the church. More so, after he confided to Mildred that he doesn't really care for Helena. Gradually and very subtly Everard Bone attracted Mildred's attention - an awkward meeting at first, then tea, then lunch. I was relieved that Mildred could see Everard's deeper qualities and was immune to Rocky's charm and his casual teasing - not at first, but also not too late. Many inexperienced spinster would fall to Rocky's charm and the seemingly cold Everard.

❤ Other than Rocky and Everard, many people around her have thought she would eventually marry their unmarried vicar, Julian Malory, who lives with his also unmarried sister Winifred at the vicarage. The siblings are Mildred's close friend, and she often visits the vicarage. But then, enter Mrs. Gray - a young beautiful widow - who rent the attic room of the vicarage. It's not a surprise to anyone, perhaps, when Julian announced his engagement to Allegra Gray.

❤ Those two implications, so to speak, disturbed the two spinsters: Mildred and Winifred, rather severely. What will happen next? Will everything come to normal again, or will there be huge changes to their world? Whatever the end will be, it was a witty and gentle read, which is surprisingly quite relevant to our modern time. How many people unjustly suppose that unmarried women always lead an idle and trouble-free life, and thus the perfect end receiving of other married people's burdens?

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mr. Finchley Discovers His England (1934) by Victor Canning

🚲 A story about middle-aged solicitor's clerk taking an adventurous holiday for the first time of his life is quite irresistible for me. And this book is just about that. No plot or story line, it's just a series of Mr. Finchley's hilarious, and often absurd, adventures around the countryside and little towns of England. The result is a refreshing and entertaining read!

🚲 Mr. Finchley's life can be accurately described in two words: regulated and rules. He's been working for years as clerk, and has never taken holiday from work. When his boss instructed him to take a three weeks summer holiday, Mr. Finchley was quite confused. But he bought a ticket anyway for a journey to a seaside town.

🚲 But Edgar Finchley never reached the town. For just from day one he always met with unexpected complications that thwarted his original plans. And these events and people he met are often comical; most of them very absurd. They are ranging from good to bad people. A Gypsy couple, a car thief (that's how he deviated from his original plan in the first place), and a male version of Miss Havisham are only a few I can remember. Along his journey, which he took either by foot or by bicycle, he was alternately kidnapped, on the run from an asylum, on the boat helping a smuggler, working at a gas station, and helping at a street show. Not to mention being chased by either the police or the angry gypsy because he thought Mr. Finchley had pinched his wife!

🚲 On the whole, this is a light read with cheerful tone, silly and charming. Overall I liked Mr. Finchley's adventures, though I was a bit uneasy when he just brushed off the smuggler's occupation just like that as if it's not wrong - because a crime is still a crime, though the criminal is kind and warm towards you, right? I know that in his position he couldn't do anything for his own sake, but I would feel troubled had I experienced the same. Excepting the game of cricket - which was too long and boring - I loved this book.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐1/5

A Far Cry from Kensington (1988) by Muriel Spark #CCSpin

💜 #CCSpin brought me a novel by a-new-to-me author: Muriel Spark. A Far Cry from Kensington is a reminiscent of post war London in 1954-1955 by a young widow: Mrs. Hawkins. At first I thought Mrs. Hawkins was in her late thirties or even early forties. She seemed matured, motherly, and loved to dispose advises. But it turned out she was quite young, only twenty nine. I think it's because of her large body, as well as her personalities, that made her seemed older and unattractive.

💜 Mrs. Hawkins lived alone in a rooming house (boarding house) in South Kensington, and worked as editor in a struggled publishing company. Also residents in the house are William, a medical student; Kate, a nurse; and Wanda Podolak, a Polish dressmakers. The later is the first center of Mrs. Hawkins' story, the other is an aspiring writer called Hector Bartlett, whom she used to call a "pisseur de copie" due to his books which were of rubbish quality.

💜 Wanda Podolak is the kind of hysterical and nervous woman. She's a good dressmaker and had many clients, men and women. One day she received an anonymous letter, threatening her to pay her taxes, or else, prison. This is just the beginning of Wanda's declining. Mrs. Hawkins and the rest of the house thought it just a bully, but Wanda, being an immigrant and hysterical in nature, took it very seriously. It didn't help too when she began taking to radionics - a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine in the shape of a black box, which was actually a historical event in the early 20th century. The writer of the letter became an exciting mysterious puzzle that was only be solved near the end.

💜 Hector Bartlett also proved to be thorn in Mrs. Hawkins's flesh due to her rude but honest appellation of him. Besides these complexities, Agnes (or Nancy) Hawkins, thirty years later, reminisces her days in the publication world, the eccentricities of her fellow residents and neighbors, as well as her efforts to be a better self - diet is one of them. And it is a thinner and much more contended Nancy Hawkins who told us this amazing story thirty years later from Italy - a far cry from that 1955 Kensington.

💜 I am so glad I had the chance to come upon this book. It seems a short and ordinary story, but it has many layers that intrigued me long after finishing it. Muriel Spark is a brilliant author to capture the depth of humanity in the post-war, but which also applies and is relevant in any era.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Mini Reviews for #AgathaChristieSS24 - September

 
The Herb of Death

🌿 It's another story told around a dinner table of Colonel and Mrs. Bantry. Same as in The Affair at the Bungalow, the guests are Sir Henry something, ex-Scotland Yard or something, a doctor, an actress who "provided" the story in The Affair at the Bungalow, and of course, our dear Miss Marple. This time, Mrs. Bantry told an intriguing event when the Bantrys were guests at Clodderham Court.

🌿 The duck they had for dinner was wrongly cooked with foxglove leaves instead of sage, and everyone was ill from digitalis poisoning. But one girl, Sir Ambrose's ward, was dead. It was supposed as an accident, but of course it's a murder. Everyone gave their opinions from every angle, but in the end, it's Miss Marple who guessed correctly.

🌿 Agatha Christie "strikes" again with a poisonous murder, which is always her forte, and which I always love for its simplicity.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

The Bird with the Broken Wing

🕊 Here is my most favorite Mr. Quin's story so far. On a seance, Mr. Satterthwaite "received a message", apparently from his old elusive friend, Mr. Quin. It instructs him to go to Laidell, where he was initially invited but thought of skipping. But now he decided to go, as something would surely  happen.

🕊 An "enchanting" girl was strangled by her ukulele string. Everyone thought it's a suicide, but Satterthwaite knew otherwise; though he couldn't say to the police about Mr. Quin, but still... Moreover, the girl had confided to him that night, that she was very happy - that something is coming that would make her happy. So suicide is beyond question. But who's the murderer? Mr. Satterthwaite knew whodunnit, as well as I, though I didn't guess the how.

🕊 A very enjoyable mystery, and that, I guess, is because of Mr. Satterthwaite's confidence. Mr. Quin's involvement is almost zero; he only appeared in the end after the mystery's solved. That is just the right amount for me...

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Rhine Journey (1980) by Ann Schlee #SpinsterSeptember

🚢 Rhine Journey is not only a journey on a steamer through the river Rhine in Germany. More than that, it is also an internal journey of an unmarried 19th century woman, from repressed spinsterhood, to independence. Charlotte is the spinster, and she is the reason Nora @ pear.jelly_ picked this book for a group read during #SpinsterSeptember.

🚢 Charlotte is an English woman, and she goes on the journey to Germany with her brother's family - Reverend Charles Morisson, his wife Marion, and their teenager daughter Ellie. On board the steamer Charlotte sees a man who resembles and reminds her of her youth lover, from whom she was separated by her brother and sister in law because they felt he didn't suit her. The man was Charlotte's only passport to happiness. Instead, she was forced to live as a retainer of the family - someone invisible and whom no one ever noticed.

🚢 It turns out the man isn't her ex lover, but a husband and a father. She begins to be infatuated with the man, even fantasizing and dreaming about making love with him, whom, in her dream, reciprocates her feeling, and treats her like how she had wanted to be treated. Then something happens that ends those fantasies, and it is at that point that Charlotte's change begins.

🚢 Charlotte had actually received a fortune, bequeathed by a Mr. Ransome, to whom she had been a caretaker. She could have had her independence then, but I think the repression of her brother and sister-in-law had been too much that she felt helpless to start an independent life. Charlotte's life had been regulated to the family's needs for too long for her to begin a new one which is her own. Loneliness is also an issue she's afraid to face.

🚢 On the whole, it's an intriguing novel, without much plot or action, as the biggest "turmoil" is happening inside Charlotte's mind. It's not an easy read for me as sometimes the line between reality and fantasy or dream is blurred. I think that's what the writer had intended it to be, and it worked. Ann Schlee captured the Victorian spinsterhood repression beautifully, though the story feels more like in the late 1910s or even 1920s.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye (1928) by Brian Flynn

💎 It all began at the Hunt Ball at Westhampton, where it was rumored that a royal personage would attend. A mysterious man, wanted to be known as Mr. X, arrived, danced, and infatuated by the pretty Sheila Delaney. Then a string of incidents took place.

💎 Private Investigator Anthony Bathurst was hired by the Crown Prince of Clorania to solve a blackmail case. While almost at the same time, Chief Detective-Inspector Bannister - only months before retirement - abruptly ended his holiday over a murder of a girl at a dentist office. One thing that connects the three events is that the parties concerned were all related to more than one of the events. It also means that Bathurst and Bannister must work together to solve both cases.

💎 This is a classic Golden Age mystery, ingeniously crafted by Brian Flynn. At first it seemed like a simple case, a murder by injecting cyanide to a dentist patient while the dentist was locked at another room. But with each revelation, the case got more complicated. First of all, the murdered girl wasn't the girl they supposed at first, but another. On what purpose did the murderer use the false identity? Then there's the bank notes the murdered girl withdrew from the bank, which were missing.

💎 What about the titular Peacock's Eye? You've guessed that it has something to do with some Oriental jewelry, right? That made up the final complication of the case. And the murderer? That's the beautiful plot twist of this book. You'll have several suspects along the way, but I doubt it if you'll ever guessed it correctly. Unlike Christie, who often scattered clues and hints blatantly throughout a book, Flynn put it there so subtly that you mightn't have noticed it at all. On the whole, it's a totally engrossing story with a clever and satisfying twist.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Miss Buncle's Book (1934) by D.E. Stevenson #SpinsterSeptember

✍🏼 September is the month dedicated for #SpinsterSeptember, a Twitter and Instagram reading event created by Nora @pearjelly_. The idea is to read books in which the main characters are spinsters. My first contribution is a brilliantly written novel by D.E. Stevenson. In Miss Buncle's Book, Stevenson wrote a book about a woman who writes a book about a woman who writes a book. Confused? Let me elaborate...

✍🏼 Miss Barbara Buncle is a spinster in her late thirties, who lives in a small town of Silverstream. When the dividend, on which she was depended her financials, was decreased in both quantity and frequency, Miss Buncle was forced to do something. This something turned out to be writing a book. But Miss Buncle has a handicap - she doesn't have imagination. Thus, she wrote a book about what she knows well - Silverstream and its residents.

✍🏼 Mr. Abbott, the publisher, read Miss Buncle's manuscript, and loved it. He agreed to publish it under title of Disturber of the Peace. The title became a prophecy when, intrigued by this new book penned by John Smith (Miss Buncle's pseudonym), the Silverstreamers procured and read the book, and.... found themselves in it! Peace has been disturbed alright. And it is the chaos the book has stirred that forms the center of this amusing book.

✍🏼 The best part of the book is learning how different each individual's reaction is towards the Disturber of the Peace. Yet, it is easy to remark that their reactions are always in accordance with their personal characters. It can be said that their reactions reflect their true characters. Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg is the strongest opponent of Disturber of the Peace. She hated both the book and the writer, John Smith. So much so, that she went to London to bully Mr. Abbott into withdrawing the book from publication - which at this point had become a bestseller - and regarded it as libel. Of course Mr. Abbott refused to do that and there's no lawyer willing to take the case. Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg was so adamant, that she decided to take the matter by herself. She invited some residents whose name were included in the book, to gather and discuss the real identity of John Smith - for they realized that he/she must be their fellow resident - and what they'd do to punish this person. 

✍🏼 This action only revealed Mrs. Featherstone-Hogg's true personality: hypocrite. She recognized the character in the book as herself, but she denied vehemently that there is any similarity between the character and herself. Funny, right? But there are also those who saw the book as amusing, like Colonel Weatherhead. The book even inspired him to do something he would have never thought possible, but in the end it actually made him happier. To another male character, the book had opened his eyes of his wrongdoings towards his family, that he tried further to correct it.

✍🏼 In short, this is a hilarious story that satirized the hypocrisy in any society in our world. What we see outside is not always the same with what lays inside. People see Miss Buncle as a rather foolish or stupid woman, that they never suspect her as John Smith. Among the Silverstreamers, only Sally Walker, the 17 years granddaughter of Miss Buncle's neighbour, who really appreciate Miss Buncle as she is. Interestingly, Sally is the only one who could describe Disturber of the Peace in accordance with its literary merit. The moral of the story is, that sometimes it's good to see one's reflection from other's mirror - there might lay the truth one doesn't often realize about one self. However, only they who are conscientious enough who can see it as it is. 

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐