The Irish Twinsby Lucy Fitch Perkins
Like The Scotch Twins, I downloaded this free ebook after having read about the series on Monica's blog.
After I had already read The Scotch Twins (and to all of you who feel the use of "Scotch" instead of "Scottish" is wrong: This really was the title of the book, not an error on my side!), I knew more or less what to expect. But while I found the first one rather charming in its simplicity and old-fashionedness, I could hardly bear this one and was on the brink of not finishing it a few times; it was saved by its shortness.
The Irish Twins was originally published in 1913. Again, we have a "typical" Irish family, living and working on a small farm that allows them just about to live without starving. As tenant farmers, the parents have to pay rent to the rich landowner. And every time they make even the most minor improvement, the rent collector raises the annual sum, making every effort worthless.
The son of one of their neighbours has gone to America to seek a better life, and when he returns to take his elderly mother with him, he tells them how things are so much better there for honest, hard-working folk.
Eventually, the twins' parents decide to leave for America as well, and (this is a children's book) the last chapter gives the reader a glance of the happy, modestly prosperous life the grown-up twins now lead there.
Before it comes to that, though, the boy and girl have an unpleasant encounter with a group of tinkers who, it turns out, have stolen a pair of geese from their farm. By chance, the twins find a piglet on the moors that has escaped from the tinker's camp. They take it home and keep it, that way more than enough making up for the theft of their geese.
All this seems like an innocent enough story for children. But I was very annoyed by how the tinkers were portrayed. There was not a good hair left on them. When they first appear in the story, I was hoping the good-hearted twins would befriend them, the lesson for the young reader being one of tolerance and kindness towards the outcast of society. Instead, it just confirmed prejudice against travelling folk, making them out as dirty, disorderly thieves, dangerous for little children to come across, and everyone a hero who manages to get the better of them.
It was actually what got me completely off the book, and the entire series. I should not be surprised, as many of the books I read were written a long time ago and show that their authors were thinking very much like most people back then. I just know I won't read another one of these, and can definitely not recommend this one.
Not all books wear their age well. I remember being quite shocked as an adult when I looked through some of my childhood books where unpleasant racial and nationalistic attitudes were depicted. None of those books were kept for my children!
ReplyDeleteMost of the books I loved as a child I can (and do) still love now, such as Astrid Lindgren's books, Edith Nesbit and the Narnia Chronicles. But there are some that, although I still love them, I see things in them now that I was not aware of back then, such as the understanding of what a woman's role in life should be.
DeleteWhat a sad book. I wonder if we were to travel back in time that we would see many things we would not agree with due to changes and improvements over the years.
ReplyDeleteThat is so, Bonnie, and although we are still very far from an ideal society, as a whole most people have much more freedom today and a much broader horizon, mentally and ethically, than back in the "good old days" (that never really existed).
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