Fear is the Original Sin

I have a fondness in my heart for Canada as a result of repeated readings of L.M. Montgomery’s Ann of Green Gables series during my childhood. Canada seemed like the opposite of Texas – cool, green, and full of people who loved you because you were difficult. I stopped reading Ann of Green Gables as a teen, but I would list it as a series that shaped my life. At no point, however, had it ever occurred to me that the author might have had any other books in her. And then Mrs. Julien reviewed The Blue Castle and everything I thought I knew was turned on it’s head. That’s a gross exaggeration, but I did have a moment of existential crisis when I wondered what else I don’t know about (answer – a lot). Mrs. Julien so kindly sent me a copy and I read it this weekend*.

As an adult I have traveled a little bit in Canada, through Southern Ontario and a little around Vancouver. I still love Canada, but I now know it’s a real place and has as many assholes as good people, even if they are more likely to apologize. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know about The Blue Castle as a kid, it would have undermined my overly rosy view of Canada. As an adult I love it. It’s a perfect crappy weekend read, soft, gentle and adventurous with a good balance of sweet and melancholic.

Valancy Stirling wakes up the day before her 29th birthday bitter and unhappy, painfully aware of her lack of life. Her life is dominated by her family and she is not allowed to have opinions, desires, or feelings. She feels like an ugly, unwanted woman in an ugly house, leading an unwanted an unnecessary life. Valancy receives a shock, which prompts her to rebel and seek out a happier life.

The Blue Castle brought to mind other books I’ve read in the past year or so. A few weeks ago I wrote a review of another book with a woman much abused by her family. That book, Sins of The Brothers, was a terrible, melodramatic litany of wrongs done to the heroine. The Blue Castle does a much better job of creating a realistic air of oppression and then allowing Valancy to seize control of her life and her relationships. It’s less a novel about getting the better of others and more about discovering the self. Valancy also reminded me somewhat of Courtney Milan’s Free Marshall and her Aunt Freddy (Governess Affair, The Heiress Effect, and The Suffragette Scandal). Like Aunt Freddy, Valancy feels trapped in her life and escapes to freedom in her imagination. Like Free, Valancy takes charge of her life and seeks out a more fulfilling, though not socially approved life, and pursues her happily ever after.

I loved reading as Valancy falls in love with herself, the world, her life and the unfortunately named Barney Snaith. There are some moments of melodrama, but they are the kind of high drama I appreciate in judicious amounts in romances. Barney may be one of my new favorite romantic heroes.

The Blue Castle was published in 1926, so there is no bow-chicka-wow-wow beyond a kiss and some hugs. I did read two more contemporary romances this weekend (reviews forth coming) which had much more explicit sexual content, but Valancy is the equal of those protagonists in passion. I expected to find The Blue Castle more alien, and was surprised that it was not. I think that the core of the story – taking hold of your life and choosing to live rather than exist, is universal. Getting to know yourself as a person separate from the expectations of family and others is a part of “coming of age.” The truth is, we all come of age at different times, sometimes more than once in a life time. Valancy’s coming of age, though set in a very different time, is not terribly different from what we might experience today.

*This is the 1st of four reviews for books I read this past weekend.