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46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Five-star Narrator, June 8, 2006
This review is from: The Observations (Hardcover)
The voice of Bessy Buckley is what makes "The Observations." Tart, scrappy, plain-spoken, and a liar, she is a teenaged Irish girl stumbling across Scotland on her way to Edinburgh and whatever that city may hold. She turns in the direction of a sign marked `Castle Haivers' to get rid of an annoying Scottish boy, and is taken on there by the Castle's strange mistress. She is asked to do a number of unusual tasks by beautiful Arabella Reid, on whom she develops rather a crush. Bessy's ability to read is both her blessing and her curse when she discovers Arabella's journal recording the obedience of servants, one in which Bessy does not receive the highest marks. Never one to take a slight in stride, Bessy uses Arabella's weaknesses against her, resulting in a tragedy that may fulfill Bessy's greatest hope.
First-novelist Jane Harris has created a terrific character is Bessy, a girl whose tender-hearted nature is revealed in the way she guards her protector's last act--pooping a tiny turd--in a silk bag. It would take a girl from the bowels of Glasgow to consider this a homage, but that's the kind of thing that makes Bessy so appealing. Less successful are Arabella and the whole supernatural element of the story. Victorian ghost stories spiced with 19th century hypocrisy/perversion are just not as interesting as Bessy Buckley scrubbing floors or snooping in drawers.
Harris's ability to create character and spin a good story is beyond doubt. She doesn't need to rely on ghostly gimmicks to make her story work, and I hope that she goes for a straight historical novel next time. She writes a great sense of place, time and character, and I look forward to her next concoction.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"How could I ever have told the terrible consequences of what I was about to do?", June 20, 2006
This review is from: The Observations (Hardcover)
An Irish lass in 1860's Scotland, Bessy Buckley is down on her luck, her former "employer" having left this mortal coil. With nothing to her name but the dress on her back, Bessy takes to the road, hoping to find work somewhere along the way. By happenstance, while coming to the aid of a local man's wife, Arabella Reid, Bessy lies her way into employment, but her duplicity is exposed when she fails to milk a cow, one of her new duties; Reid calls Bessy back and takes her gladly into her home when she realizes that the girl can read and write. One of Bessy's new duties will entail keeping a detailed journal, although she must be taught how to properly assemble her thoughts into a coherent form on the pages. Happy enough in her new role, Bessy has clean clothes and a room for sleeping, although she must endure extremely odd orders from her new employer.
While snooping in Arabella's room, Bessy discovers the woman is writing a book, Observations on the Habits and Nature of the Domestic Class in My Home; some of the remarks written about Bessy are none too kind. Miffed, her feelings hurt, Bessy nurtures a grudge that will fester the longer she works for Mrs. Reid. Over time, Bessy learns there have been other girls, one of whom, Nora, disappeared and was later found dead near the railroad tracks, causing much grief to Arabella. Growing attached to Arabella in spite of her critical comments, Bessy's jealousy is pricked by the very mention of Nora and the effect the girls name has on Mrs. Reid. Bessy craves a small revenge. Unfortunately, her petty machinations result in the unraveling of the Reid household, uncovering the troubling events surrounding Nora's demise.
Grimly atmospheric and steeped in mystery, Arabella's journals call to Bessy, who rather ingeniously seeks to learn the nature of the Reid's marriage, the cause of Nora's untimely disappearance and Arabella's floundering mental condition, although the answers are a bit anticlimactic. Her quirky humor is a constant, a running commentary on the habits of the better class, their pretensions and distractions. In a strange brew of social convention, the despair of a lonely, half-mad woman and the restrictions of a patriarchal society, Bessy is bent on her own survival, yet blind-sided by unexpected affection for Arabella, a Byzantine maze of hopes denied and fortunes run amok. Luan Gaines/ 2006.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A first-rate novel with a bit of everything, July 5, 2006
This review is from: The Observations (Hardcover)
Fifteen-year-old Bessy Buckley "had reason to leave Glasgow," but that reason she'll tell you later on. First, she wants to start at the beginning of her story. In her journey along the Great Road toward Edinburgh --- which she made on foot, for this is 1863 and the automobile is a ways off yet --- she encounters a lady chasing a pig, which she thinks looks like tremendous fun. She stops to see if she can help. This woman turns out to be the mistress of Castle Haivers, a grand manor that is a little the worse for wear by the time Bessy gets there, but the offer of work as a maid is a far cry better than what she left in Glasgow.
A strange but electric kind of relationship builds between the maid and the lady of the house. Even a bold and bawdy young Irish girl fleeing a questionable past needs someone to love and care for. Bessy forms a fierce attraction for her mistress, with an almost desperate desire to please. Unfortunately, lady Arabella exhibits some unique behavior, eccentric at best. Right off, Bessy notes "...there was something queer about all this...you could have sensed it a mile off downwind with your eyes blindfolded your nose blocked your ears stopped up and a cork in your hole."
Well, Bessy can read and write, to Arabella's delight, and the lady takes it upon herself to teach her more proper ways. She asks her, as she has all her previous maids, to keep a journal of her daily doings. Bessy writes freestyle, without the bother of commas and periods, which she deems about as understandable as goat droppings. As Arabella gets her to pay more attention, more punctuation finds its way into Bessy's story. If currying favor with missus means learning how to use those funny dots and squiggles, so be it.
Bessy is about as honest a person as you'll meet, taking responsibility and all its repercussions without a flinch, whether she deserves to or not. She doesn't care one bit what others think of her --- except, that is, for missus. As she goes about her duties, Bessy (not exactly nosy but let's call her unusually curious) makes some disturbing observations of her own about her mistress and Castle Haivers. Lady Arabella's odd requests leave Bessy flummoxed, to say the very least, a state she does not handle well, and it prompts her to probe deeper to make sense of what's going on. What she finds out is heartbreaking.
Bessy's is the freshest voice to come along in a long time. Totally unpretentious, plainspoken, blunt and highly observant, Bessy tells it like it is, and a bit like it isn't, if the truth be told. It is sometimes hard to tell whether she is making up words and phrases or whether they are Irish colloquialisms, but they are all hilarious. Case in point: Pig's pizzle, one of my favorites. And she has many, many more.
THE OBSERVATIONS will make you laugh and it will make you cry, and it will be remembered for a long time to come. Told by the highly entertaining narrator, Bessy Buckley, it is utterly unputdownable.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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