Tag: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Posted May 30, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Childrens, Classic / 10 Comments

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson BurnettTitle: The Secret Garden (Goodreads)
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Published: Oxford World's Classics, 1911
Pages: 210
Genres: Childrens, Classic
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.”

I admit that when it comes to children’s literature, I’ve been a little slack. So much for the literary explorer, this blog only has two books review that would fit the genre. One being the wonderful Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which I read a long time ago and absolutely loved, the second was The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe. I’ve only read two children’s books for this blog. I was happy to see that the Literary Exploration Book Club on Goodreads (it’s a great group, join it if you want to try different genres) decided that it was about time we did a children’s book. There were some great nominations for this poll, including Charlotte’s Web, Pinocchio, Wonder but it all came down to a battle between The Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden. I have very vague memories of The Secret Garden; I know it had adventure, a secret garden and it was centred on a young girl.

What I got when I started reading this novel was something truly amazing. It has a nice blend of the Gothic and Romantic ideology and, you know me, that is the type of novel that I crave. The story follows a young girl who is sent to live with her mysterious uncle when her parents died from cholera. It was established from the very first line that “everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen”. We get a sense from that line that no one likes her and add the fact that she grow up in India with servants we know she was an over privileged brat of a child. This is all from the first chapter, so I knew from the start that I was reading a children’s novel that was going to be very different to the ones of its time. The whole idea of the Victorian girl, the girl that is always well behaved and helpful in the kitchen and is spending her time getting educated and prepared for marriage was not going to play any part in The Secret Garden, in fact it was more likely to be similar to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island in the sense that we have a child out for adventure.

Now, I’ve stated that there are elements of the Gothic and the Romantic in this novel so let me just expand on that real briefly. Mary was a sickly child when she came to Misselthwaite manor; in fact she was described in the first paragraph to have “a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another.” Then when you get to chapter 11 you hear her say “’I’m growing fatter,’ said Mary, ‘and I’m growing stronger. I used always to be tired. When I dig I’m not tired at all. I like to smell the earth when it’s turned up.’” All this has been a result of communing with nature, the very essence of the Romantic Movement.

Now when it comes to the Gothic you obviously have the big manor on the moors with all the secrets housed within it. You can see the typical gothic tropes through out The Secret Garden, Mary often hearing mysterious cries in the house and has been told it is just the wind. The whole house and even the garden has secrets and it is this that makes up the architecture for the gothic within this novel. However you can take it one step further, I viewed Misselthwaite manor as a symbol of Mary’s psyche. All those locked rooms hiding the secrets are representative of the psychological damage Mary has been through and slowly has to deal with.

There are so many little elements you can study within this novel. I kept looking at the similarities between characters and tried to understand what would Frances Hodgson Burnett wanted to say. Look at the similarities between Mary and the robin; both orphans, both find refuge in the secret gardens and seeking friendship. Then you can compare the similarities between Mary and Colin; both ten years old, sickly, neglected and over privileged, spoiled little children. I spent a lot of time wondering the importance behind the parallel lives but in the end have just decided that Burnett did this to emphasise the themes throughout this classic children’s novel.

The major theme that I believe comes through The Secret Garden is the importance between friendship and companionship (with Mary and Colin or even the robin). The Christian Scientist idea of disease not being a product of the body but of negative thinking seems to come to mind when I think about this theme. Frances Hodgson Burnett had a keen interest in the Christian Science movement (as well as Spiritualism and Theosophy in general) which developed before she began writing The Secret Garden.

You also have the theme that suggests an importance of being outdoors; the notion of getting out of the house and exercising being healthy for young children runs throughout the novel. This could also been accredited to a Christian Scientist ideology or more a product from the changing times where fresh air and exercise for children have been promoted. There is the Romantic Movement that suggests the importance of communing with nature, which was a backlash against an emphasis on the enlightenment and scientific. The movement wanted to highlight the glory, beauty and power of the natural world. Both Christian Scientists and The Romantics believe the natural world to be a source of healthy thinking, emotions and ideas.

In the end, this book is great and a joy to read, I was wondering how so many people enjoyed the book when I feel like too many people get put off by unlikeable characters. Both Mary and Colin where the most disagreeable children (not entirely true but close) and I’m perplexed, I feel like people only hate a book with unlikeable characters when it suits them and looking for an excuse. Anyway I’m not going to go into that. Analysing The Secret Garden closely, I did wonder if this novel came off too preachy but I enjoyed it none the less. It has inspired me to read some more children’s classics but I’m not sure which one I’ll read next.


The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe

Posted March 16, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Childrens, Humour / 0 Comments

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon DefoeTitle: The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists (Goodreads)
Author: Gideon Defoe
Series: The Pirates! #1
Published: Pantheon, 2004
Pages: 144
Genres: Childrens, Humour
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists follows the story of the Pirate captain and his unorthodox crew. On their adventures they meet Charles Darwin and his highly trained and sophisticated “man-panzee” Mister Bobo. Darwin has been banished from London by a rival scientist and manages to convince the Pirate captain to help defeat his enemies.

While this book and the rest of the series is not aimed at children, it comes as a real surprise that the stop animation movie adaption was. I’ve not seen the movie but I can’t imagine a cannon ball ripping through a woman’s head would make for good movie viewing. Having said that I wouldn’t mind seeing that, the humour would be well worth seeing. The humour really relies on clichés and irony, while will make for a very entertaining experience. While the book has the humour there is a visual aspect to some of the jokes that really would work better in a movie.

I think book really reads more like a script for a movie and while it isn’t laid out that way I can’t help but thing that a movie adaptation was the main goal of the author. I know of people who have seen the movie and then went on to enjoy the books and I think that might be the order required. I can’t help think the humour was a cross between Monty Python and Wallace and Gromit, yet again why I think the movie would work better.

While the rest of the book falls into the realms of cliché, this book is all about the humour and nothing else. I would have liked a better plot and better characters but clearly this wasn’t the focus at all. I’m really not sure if I want to continue with this series but for a bit of light reading I might return, but I have so many other books I want to read so I doubt I’ll be back anytime soon.


Monthly Review – January 2013

Posted January 31, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 0 Comments

As the first month of 2013 comes to a close, it has been amazing to see how much excitement people are having towards both The Shadow of the Wind and the Literary Exploration Reading Challenge. For those who don’t know about the reading challenge, there is still time to join in the fun, so check out my introductory post here.

I’ve been off to a flying start this year, I’ve read twenty books, a feat I’m not sure how I managed, but I’ve had so much fun doing so. Nine of those books go towards the Literary Exploration Reading Challenge and you can find my own record of the challenge here. I’m thinking about trying to read two books for each genre this year and I’m keeping a record of every book and which genre it best fits into on that page as well, just to see which genres need more attention in my exploring.

Highlights of the month for me include; the highly talked about Wool by Hugh Howey, the bittersweet Big Ray by Michael Kimball and the existential The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. But the one I really thought deserves high praise is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, a novel of great beauty, decorum and love lost. I haven’t reviewed these books yet but keep an eye out, they will come. So what have you been reading this month?

Monthly Reading

  • Big Ray by Michael Kimball
  • Black Vodka: Ten Stories by Deborah Levy
  • Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
  • Gangster Squad: Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles by Paul Lieberman
  • In the Midst of Death by Lawrence Block
  • Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  • Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
  • Revenge: Stories by Yoko Ogawa
  • The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
  • The Dark Winter by David Mark
  • The Mad Scientist’s Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clarke
  • The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe
  • The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • The Silver Linings Play Book by Matthew Quick
  • The Sins of the Fathers by Lawrence Block
  • The Toe Tag Quintet by Matthew Condon
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
  • Wool by Hugh Howey