Mini-reviews

Flowers for Mrs. Harris by Paul Gallico

This was a quick cold-weather weekend read to satisfy me as I turned in all my assignments and started mid-semester vacation. My review of Coronation interested some friends, so I was happy to start another Gallico book.

I empathize with Mrs. Ada Harris, who should certainly pronounce her own name 'Ida', as she says things like, 'I got some money to get a passport photo for myself.' Mrs Harris is a 'British char' and I was once an Australian cleaner. She sees her profession as a creative endeavor that she is proud of, which is possibly the best way to pursue home cleaning in the long term. (I only did it for a few years. You get used to it, but it's notorious for repetitive strain injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome and lower back problems.)

Anyway, Ms. Harris sees two Christian Dior dresses in a client's closet and finds them breathtaking and heavenly. They completely quench her thirst for beauty and color, so she sets a new life goal there. It's not to stop putting your body under pressure, cleaning up for other people, as Ms. Harris is a realist. It's having a Dior dress of her own, as she is also a romantic. Mrs. Harris knows there will never be an event where she can wear it, but the exciting idea of storing such exquisite perfection in her own wardrobe drives her to save and save until she can afford this sublime item, but essentially useless.

Then she heads to Paris to choose her dress, where she is totally out of her depth in powerful elegance circles. Yet this courageous heroine refuses to feel belittled by snobbery and encourages herself with the reminder, "Your money is as good as anyone else's." Her arrival impacts several other people she bumps into, including Madame Colbert, the manager, who realizes that her work with VIPs has blinded her to the reality of broader human needs. There is also Natasha, Paris' most celebrated model and toast, who knows very well that she is being objectified and treated as a beautiful prop to boost other people's public images. Natasha wants to quit her illustrious job and be absorbed back into bourgeois anonymity, but finds the price too high to pay, until honest little Mrs. Harris walks through the door.

It is a lovely story about the high price of being 'someone' and the inherent dignity of being 'nobody' and also encourages us to discover our own beauty to boost our spirits in this world of toil. I think reading Paul Gallico's books is a bit like indulging in a super-sweet dessert. Reading them backwards would be overwhelming, but they're great for a quick indulgence here and there.

And talk about a 1950s vibe! This decade ended long before I was born, but I can almost smell the Brylcreem, not to mention the heady smell of big money.

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Devotion by Hannah Kent

I loved this book because the characters' stories are taken directly from my ancestral origins on my mother's side. They are devout German Lutherans and Prussians who make the enormous sacrifice of migrating to South Australia on a grueling six-month sea voyage, for the freedom to worship God in their own way. And they end up in the lush, fertile Adelaide Hills, where they build the township of Hahndorf (which is renamed Heiligendorf in this novel, but we all know where that means).

The tale begins in the Prussian village of Kay and focuses on two teenage girls who form an extremely close and loving bond. Hanne Nussbaum, who narrates the story, is a clumsy, clumsy girl who suspects she will never live up to the expectations of her stern father and tight-lipped, stoic (but incredibly beautiful) mother. His new friend, Thea Auchenwald, is the daughter of two more broad-minded newcomers who remain in the outer circle of village life. In fact, it is rumored that Thea's mother, Anna-Maria, is a bit of a witch because of her herbal remedies, although desperate people don't mind calling her for medical emergencies.

During the debilitating sea passage aboard the Kristi, something drastic happens to Hanne that allows her true vivacious and capricious nature to have free rein. (Major plot spoilers close my lips.) Suffice it to say, this changes the whole way he relates to his parents, his handsome and sassy twin brother, Matthias, and his rebellious little sister, Hermine. Not to mention Thea, who she realizes she loves with all her heart.

Hannah Kent is known for her impeccable research, and this is authentic and polished. Perhaps Hanne and Matthias can come across the mindset of 21st-century young people, the way they surreptitiously smile at their father's radical piety behind their backs. In this case, I feel like Kent couldn't write any other way. I love these flashes of modern solidarity from the twins. If they shared the same sobriety and severity as their father, as they may have done in real life, it wouldn't be the same book. I think historical novels must have their share of updated attitudes to make them palatable.

There are many wonderful lyrical tributes to his new surroundings, full of strange, mobile and noisy new flora and fauna. Hanne also contrasts the color, light, and scent favorably with the dense, dark environment of the forest they came from, lovely as it was. Since their story and setting are mine (as I lived a five-minute drive from Hahndorf for many years), I wonder if I'm biased to enjoy this book as much as I do. It certainly makes me value my local environment and spare a thought for the brave and desperate settlers whose blood runs through my veins.

I can't even give genre tips to other readers, as that in itself could be a spoiler. All I can say is read it, and tell me what you think. It's historical fiction, and that's all we need to know at the start.

The theme of the novel can be said to be spoken by Thea. 'Owe nothing to anyone, just love one another, for he who loves has fulfilled the covenant.'

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