*A Little Princess* (1906)
Apr. 16th, 2013 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emma_in_dreamWhoops, turns out that *The Little Princess* was published in 1906 so is not in scope for this challenge. Nonetheless, a great read.
I love it because it emphasises the power of imagination, as Sarah triumphs over being forced to work as a skivvy in her school after her father dies and all her money is lost. Sarah’s innate gentility, intelligence and imagination carry her through. (Burnett was very big on the innate qualities of nobility).
I do like the scenes where Sarah and Becky imagine that their rooms in the attic are the Bastille. Even better is the moment when her neighbour arranges for her room to be transformed – by magic! – into a warm, beautiful space.
I have to say, though, that the ending is always a bit weak for me. I get that a deus ex machine is needed to rescue her and restore her fortune. But the neighbour being her father’s lost business partner with the diamond mine fortunes revived has always seemed dodgy for me. To start with, why did he not rescue her before he found out who she was? He knew there was a child in need but did not bother rescuing her until he realised she was a child of his class. (Indeed, there were two children needing rescuing and he did not even bother to send Becky food.) Secondly, what kind of nitwit manages to lose a child in the first place? And how can such a twit be deemed a proper guardian for a child? Especially when she calls herself his ‘Little Missus’ with all the icky going to marry her when she grows up suggested by that phrase.
I read a rather dismissive biographical summary which said that Burnett mostly wrote books with built in obsolescence, pot boilers that she churned out annually. It conceded, though, that she hit gold at least a few times - *Little Lord Fauntleroy*, *The Little Princess*, *The Lost Prince* and *The Secret Garden* are all ‘consumer durables’, works made to last.
I love it because it emphasises the power of imagination, as Sarah triumphs over being forced to work as a skivvy in her school after her father dies and all her money is lost. Sarah’s innate gentility, intelligence and imagination carry her through. (Burnett was very big on the innate qualities of nobility).
I do like the scenes where Sarah and Becky imagine that their rooms in the attic are the Bastille. Even better is the moment when her neighbour arranges for her room to be transformed – by magic! – into a warm, beautiful space.
I have to say, though, that the ending is always a bit weak for me. I get that a deus ex machine is needed to rescue her and restore her fortune. But the neighbour being her father’s lost business partner with the diamond mine fortunes revived has always seemed dodgy for me. To start with, why did he not rescue her before he found out who she was? He knew there was a child in need but did not bother rescuing her until he realised she was a child of his class. (Indeed, there were two children needing rescuing and he did not even bother to send Becky food.) Secondly, what kind of nitwit manages to lose a child in the first place? And how can such a twit be deemed a proper guardian for a child? Especially when she calls herself his ‘Little Missus’ with all the icky going to marry her when she grows up suggested by that phrase.
I read a rather dismissive biographical summary which said that Burnett mostly wrote books with built in obsolescence, pot boilers that she churned out annually. It conceded, though, that she hit gold at least a few times - *Little Lord Fauntleroy*, *The Little Princess*, *The Lost Prince* and *The Secret Garden* are all ‘consumer durables’, works made to last.
