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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I loved this book!,
By
This review is from: High Wages (Paperback)
This is my second Dorothy Whipple book and it won't be my last! Where have I been? Someone at a Distance was my first DW book, and although this is a very different story, the same things I loved about her writing are present. She has a way of writing simply but expressing such deep emotion and character, it's truly a wonder to read her books.The story is about a poor orphaned young lady, Jane, and takes place in the early 20th century. Jane becomes a sales girl in a ladies dress shop. Dresses were made to order then, and as the story unfolds you see the rise of "ready made" and the way we shop today. She's paid very little, taken for granted by the owner, and sometimes taken advantage of as well. She learns the ins and outs of the retail trade and develops ideas on how to grow the business. It's a simple story, of a small town, the relationships between it's various citizens, prejudices and friendships, the coming of the war and it's effect on the citizens of the town. THere's a love story, somewhat contrived, but really wonderful nonetheless, but most of all I loved watching Jane grow in every way. Dorothy Whipple reminds me a great deal of Elizabeth Gaskell, she's never in your face, with "social change" or anything else, instead she unfolds her story gracefully and with feeling. Highly recommended!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I don't have enough good things to say about this book!,
By
This review is from: High Wages (Paperback)
Set in the years leading up to and through WWI, this is the tale of Jane Carter, a teenage girl when the story begins, who gets a job as an assistant in a draper's shop in a town. The story takes Jane from the 1910s up through the 1920s, when she opens up her own shop, becoming as she does so much more independent.This is one of Dorothy Whipple's earlier novels, so it's less polished than, say They Were Sister or Someone at a Distance. Still, it's interesting for the way it portrays life in the early 20th century and the difference between the various classes (Jane as a poor girl from Lancashire; Mr. Chadwick, who has aspirations to something more; the wealthy, genteel Greenwoods; and the Briggses, who are self-made). I enjoyed watching how those differences began to break down and how these various characters interact with each other. I loved Mrs. Briggs especially; she's married to one of the wealthiest people in town, but she's still kept her lower-class ways, dropping her aitches and befriending shopgirls. She's eccentric and entertaining, which makes her an engaging character. In addition, I enjoyed watching Jane's development from a slightly shy shopgirl to an independent shopowner, one of the New Women of the early 20th century (but not a feminist). It's truly amazing (albeit somewhat unrealistic) how she eventually gets the better of the Greenwoods in the end, or how she manages to come to the rescue of the Briggses, just in the nick of time (a plot contrivance, if ever I saw one, but I enjoyed it). There may a couple of problems with the plot, but I really enjoyed Dorothy Whipple's character descriptions--she has a way of summing up her characters in just a few sentences. The characters in some of Whipple's later novels tend to be either too good or too bad, but here there's a little more gray area, which I enjoyed. Incidentally, this novel also contains an interesting look at the ways in which fashion changed in the early 20th century--as seen in Jane's willingness to adopt a ready-made department, for example, or using a shop window to advertise goods. The author uses fashion and clothing to describe her characters' personalities and station in life, and they spend a lot of time in this novel obsessing over the little details. I loved how Dorothy Whipple managed to work all of this into the novel in a way that was subtle.
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