One of my first impressions of Maud Hart Lovelace's Carney's House Party, is my, those young women like to sing a lot. Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1911 must have been a fine place indeed. (I'm sure it still is). Although I am saving all the extra material at the end of the book for when I finish the story, I did have a little peek to see if MHL also attended Vassar, and she did. What I love about books like this--not historical fiction but a book written about an era long gone but written by someone who lived it--is that it feels authentic. As good as historical research can be, there is nothing like capturing the essence of time and place from real experience.
The story feels both comfortingly familiar (a lovely gentle read for the end of the year when life can be stressful--and dark and cold, too) yet interestingly different. You know that famous line, "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there"? That's what this is like. I can imagine what she is writing about yet it is still just the tiniest bit different. Some of her words and references are tantalizingly different and I have been marking little things to look up later.
Whitman's Instantaneous Cocoa (sounds good)
Locomobile?
Middies?
A different world, but maybe not entirely so. The young women put on a "spread" (as is lay out lots of goodies) so they can gossip about a young man who came visiting. I guess young women and flirting is always the same (more or less).
"There were plenty of men, and few of the restrictions which prevailed at Vassar."
"Carney had never felt romantic about any boy, except Larry Humphreys."
Larry is her beau from high school but who now goes to school in California. No worries, they have been writing regularly every week.
But some things do feel decidedly different. This is not our own chips and salsa and maybe a soda or juice. And not eaten out of disposable packaging.
"She [Carney] carefully washed the china, rinsed it and wiped it, and put the little tea table in immaculate order."
Gosh, I don't even use china for holiday meals in my house. But there is something sort of romantic (or maybe just entertaining) thinking about a world like this.
Let me give you a little description of Carney, so you have an idea of who I am reading about. Upon deciding that her roommate will get an invitation to come visit her in Minnesota over the summer . . .
"With which announcement Carney jumped up and her dimple flashed. As always, her smile changed her look from demure primness to mischief. It showed white, slightly irregular teeth that folded in front into a piquant peak. It was irrepressibly mirthful."
Let the party begin!