Miss Marjoribanks 9 (Oct. 1865--chaps 29-32)

Dear Serial Readers,

I loved the "outsourced" review Josh provided--and I thought the description of Oliphant could also apply to Lucilla herself. And I agree about the slapstick elements--I found so many scenes hilarious--like Cavendish's bad luck of sitting at the dinner table directly under the lamp so that the Archdeacon immediately recognized him. And Lucilla, whose sharp vision sees the calamity about to happen,drops her fan into her pyramid-shaped dinner napkin! And then all the mistaken assumptions about Lucilla and Cavendish, from Mrs Chiley or others watching her. AND, like last time, those allusions to "Them," or, as Mrs Chiley puts it, "everybody knows men are great fools where women are concerned." I don't think I've encountered another Victorian novelist this funny with the exception of Dickens--but, as I've said before, the Oliphantine humor is so different.

What struck me this time is the narrowness of the canvas here--that all the action of the novel is basically across two streets in Carlingford--the class-inflected neighborhoods of Grange Lane and Grove Street, and a few select homes within each. Not much traveling about this novel, but so much action, so much tempest in a drawing-room! And for all the suspense set up for the last installment (as TK said, "I wonder what will happen next!"), the playing out of the Cavendish Unveiled plot is quite drawn out. Now we have to wait for the next segment to see if Lucilla's best-laid plans to hitch Mrs. Mortimer with the Archdeacon (motivated by her desire to foil her father's leaning toward the widow who wants to disappear), will come off. And whether Cavendish will marry Barbara Lake after all, now that Lucilla has confirmed his class fall. The plot moves slowly, and not much happens, and yet the novel is oddly engrossing. As others have commented, this seems a different animal altogether from the familiar fare of Victorian domestic fiction, an alternative realism.

Despite the anxiety about this particular Thursday Evening, as it faintly registers through Lucilla's body (although her pulse remains calm!), her self-possession as hostess extraordinaire is still delightfully reassuring. She is a social artist, and what's also quite remarkable is her zest--her "genius"--for this. And so this installment propels us forward to more drawing-room suspense orchestrated by Lucilla: "her lofty energies went on unwearied to overrule and guide the crisis which was to decide so many people's fate." Is this humor in hyperbole?

Next time, chaps 33-36.

Serially salivating,
Serial Susan