Elsie Dinsmore

[sisof9]

I am watching Game of Thrones RIGHT NOW!!! Like, hubby is setting up the next episode as I type ;)

[Cassandra]

[ The Grover Cleveland/Frances Folsom marriage later on in the century probably didn't do much to stifle this as a romantic idea. For those who don't know, Folsom was Cleveland's ward (daughter of his late law partner) and he married her when she was 18 or 19.

So Woody Allen is obviously way behind in the times.

[hoipolloi]

The Elsie books are dreadful. I remember trying to read #1 at maybe the age of 10 or 11 and even then recognized it for the garbage it is. Am I surprised that a pervert like Doug Phillips thinks the Elsie books are great literature?

And as for Little Father Time in Jude the Obscure, who could forget his suicide/murder note:

"Done because we are too menny."

No wonder the QF types don't like that book!

[booksnbeats]

The fundies could get into eighteenth-century conduct novels--i.e. kiss a man, and you will end up abandoned, having his baby, and eventually dead on the streets, etc., but with lots of scandalousness along the way. Of course, they will never do anything awesome.

As for nineteenth-century reading, I'd love to give some fundie gals The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Girlfriend up and leaves her alcoholic husband, but does go back to nurse him as he is dying. Meanwhile she takes on a false identity and tells her woes to a hot young dude from the village (the narrator). I think it would confuse the heck out of them. :think:

Wuthering Heights is more like what probably DOES go on in these families...okay, I'll stop!

[GenerationCedarchip]

@sisof9 -Oh, I loved the Mandie books!

[Hestia]

Bleh. Elsie was a BIG favourite in my community when I was around 10-12. I always thuoght the books were sickening, I wanted to shake her. :-p

I preferred Anne of Green Gables, Little Woman etc at the time. And then at age 13 I found Mills and Boon while I was at a friends house... for a fundie, that was quite....interesting.

I never ONLY went to the classics section of the library again :-p

(I transferred my love of classics onto Tolkien and Greek plays after that)

[Feberin]

We have the entire Elsie series at my library. I tried the first one but put it down almost immeditally. The books check out decently enough.

[Elle]

L.M. Montgomery springs to mind. In her Emily series, Dean tells a 12-year-old Emily "I think I will wait for you". Later, he is jealous of her literary aspirations because her books mean more to her than he does. Oh, and he also offers up this gem: "And, like all female creatures, you form your opinions by your feelings."

12, while still a child, is better than 6.... Is it too much to hope that Dean is maybe 17, or even 16?

[oscar]

12, while still a child, is better than 6.... Is it too much to hope that Dean is maybe 17, or even 16?

Yep, that's too much to hope for - he's her deceased father's contemporary. But they don't end up together. Edited to add: His entire family shared a common flaw - possessiveness - and they all ended up damaged by clinging to things they couldn't have. Montgomery was definitely critical of this romantic trope.

[valsa]

It's totally not Literature, but Game of Thrones has a man who lives out in the woods, marries his daughters, and sacrifices his sons. The thing that's particularly disturbing about this for me is that it reminds me of some of the families we snark on. (Not literally, of course, but in fundie life everything revolves around the father.)

I was actually just thinking about the same guy. To be fair, Song of Ice and Fire books are full of creepers but he was the worst of the worst.

[wtylcf]

L.M. Montgomery springs to mind. In her Emily series, Dean tells a 12-year-old Emily "I think I will wait for you". Later, he is jealous of her literary aspirations because her books mean more to her than he does. Oh, and he also offers up this gem: "And, like all female creatures, you form your opinions by your feelings."

You're right; it is creepy, though I never thought of it as being as creepy as what's being described in the Elsie Dinsmore books. It helps somewhat that this comment goes right over Emily's head at the time and isn't perceived as being lecherous; that Dean is a hundred times more interesting than her eventual husband, super-boring Teddy Kent (who seems bereft of any personality whatsoever); and that he's too chicken to kiss Emily during their entire (eventually failed) engagement. I always assumed that the relationship wasn't so much about Dean's waiting for Emily to grow up as it was about Dean being too weird to be in a relationship with anyone else. Eventually Montgomery concludes that their incompatiblity wasn't because of their age difference, but was because he lied to her about the merit of her work, and because he was jealous of her devotion to her career. Her stories are full of older people finding common ground with young people in entirely platonic relationships based on a similar poetic outlook on the world, so that such a friendship would turn romantic isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility in her work. But apologetics can only go so far - if I look at the story with the eyes of an adult reader, I think to myself, "there is something wrong with that man." Which is pretty much what Emily's Aunt Elizabeth says (or secretly thinks) for the entire novel, so that viewpoint is present.

[bea]

You are all terrible, terrible people who are responsible for the fact that it's going to take two pots of coffee to get me through the day.

Elsie Dinmore is available for free on the Kindle, so I downloaded it last night and started reading.

And I couldn't STOP. It was almost like watching a car crash - I wanted to see what awful thing would happen next.

My husband came to bed at 1am and told me to put the Kindle down and go to sleep. I had Elsie dreams.

ARGH. :lol:

[booksnbeats]

You are all terrible, terrible people who are responsible for the fact that it's going to take two pots of coffee to get me through the day.

Elsie Dinmore is available for free on the Kindle, so I downloaded it last night and started reading.

And I couldn't STOP. It was almost like watching a car crash - I wanted to see what awful thing would happen next.

My husband came to bed at 1am and told me to put the Kindle down and go to sleep. I had Elsie dreams.

ARGH. :lol:

OMG! I have a Kindle. Got to read this now! Now it's your fault! :)

[debrand]

I was actually just thinking about the same guy. To be fair, Song of Ice and Fire books are full of creepers but he was the worst of the worst.

I am halfway through the third book and I hate the character that Athena is writing about. Hopefully, someone will kill him. LOL I want his wives to turn on him but I guess that isn't going to happen

[bananacat]

I have to wonder at how fundies who are so determined to see the slightest hint of sex everywhere else ("Oh no! I might defraud someone by doing English Country Dancing!" "Little girls must be raised modest from the start, otherwise some man might be defrauded by your six-year-old!") don't see the epic amount of creepy in these books when it comes to Mr. Travilla.

Then again, we've discussed their ability to read historical fiction with some pretty large blinders on before.

I think that in their view, it's women and girls who are always on the verge of sexuality immorality. Men get a pass unless they do something extreme, and even then it's generally blamed on the woman. They seem to view men as wild animals with no self-control, so it's up to women to not tempt them.

[thoughtful]

A quote I found from Against the Day (Pynchon's book about the nineteenth century):

"Pa's dead and gone and I haven't stopped hating him. What kind of unnatural daughter's that make me? A girl is supposed to love her father."

"Sure, in those Elsie Dinsmore stories or someplace. We all grew up on that stuff, and it poisoned our souls."

I know I've posted this before, but my two favorite references to Elsie Dinsmore in other works are the O.Henry parody

http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/231/

and the fact that the Rhoda Penmark, the evil little girl in The Bad Seed, is excited to get one as a gift, and is carrying it in several scenes (wish I could find clips or pics).

[justlurking]

I know I've posted this before, but my two favorite references to Elsie Dinsmore in other works are the O.Henry parody

http://www.literaturecollection.com/a/o_henry/231/

and the fact that the Rhoda Penmark, the evil little girl in The Bad Seed, is excited to get one as a gift, and is carrying it in several scenes (wish I could find clips or pics).

[debrand]

:clap: I'm so glad somebody else knows about "The Bad Seed". I love that movie (and book), and also think the same thing whenever I hear people talk about Elsie Dinsmore. It was sheer literary (and theatrical) genius to juxtapose Rhoda with Elsie. Both characters act so disgustingly sweet in ways that no normal child would act, but Rhoda's is a mere front for the evil, pyschopathic bitch she truly is. I just know the author was trying to make a statement about Elsie with that one!

[marmalade]

Speaking of creepers in literature (REAL literature)...Humbert Humbert, anyone? I don't creep easily, but if I ever see anyone drinking a gin-pin, I'll start running in the other direction.

Thankfully, I managed to avoid Elsie in favor of Wilder, Alcott and Judy Blume in my elementary school years. I was given Gone With the Wind for my 12th birthday, so I pretty much skipped from child's play to the big girl stuff in a single leap. From there on out, I devoured trashy historical novels. But only the higher-end stuff; one series, set around the time of the signing of the Magna Carta, was written by a lady with a PhD in medieval history.

The guy who waits for his woman reminds me of Mr. Knightley in Emma, although I'm pretty sure he did not remain celibate waiting for her to grow up. Austen was a realist when it came to her culture; she wrote what she intimately knew.

I can't believe any fundie family approved Mark Twain. The man was the polar opposite of the lady who wrote the Elsie Dinsmore books (whose family, with the help of Hometime, restored the author's house in Minnesota, which was the model for Elsie's home).

[keen23]

Humbert Humbert is major squick factor. I got in trouble in high school for writing a report on Lolita. I could see that it was a satire, but my high school English teacher was incapable of understanding this, and felt that the book should be banned all together. Scary that the man was allowed to teach for so long.

How different in spirit is the Elsie character from the stereotypical bodice-ripper heroines from the 1980's historical romance novels? Where the female lead was generally 18-22 years old, and the male was in his 30's or older. And forced sex was a common plot point? Catherine Coulter's Devil's Embrace and Devil's Daughter come to mind. Or Seduced by Victoria Henley (yeah, it's a 1990's, so sue me)? Or my favorite- Wild Hearts by Victoria Henley- they're cousins! He kidnaps her! He offers tells his sister to sleep with a friend to keep him from realizing that the cousin isn't a long lost sister (yeah, I love this book)!

[GenerationCedarchip]

Humbert Humbert is major squick factor. I got in trouble in high school for writing a report on Lolita. I could see that it was a satire, but my high school English teacher was incapable of understanding this, and felt that the book should be banned all together. Scary that the man was allowed to teach for so long.

How different in spirit is the Elsie character from the stereotypical bodice-ripper heroines from the 1980's historical romance novels? Where the female lead was generally 18-22 years old, and the male was in his 30's or older. And forced sex was a common plot point? Catherine Coulter's Devil's Embrace and Devil's Daughter come to mind. Or Seduced by Victoria Henley (yeah, it's a 1990's, so sue me)? Or my favorite- Wild Hearts by Victoria Henley- they're cousins! He kidnaps her! He offers tells his sister to sleep with a friend to keep him from realizing that the cousin isn't a long lost sister (yeah, I love this book)!

Good point. The whole submission to male authority is huge in those old-style bodice rippers. I like newer romance novels much better. The heroines aren't quite so wide-eyed and insipid.

[thoughtful]

I love that movie and I'm especially happy that Hollywood never made a remake of it.

[Lainey]

Blah...happily, my family didn't believe in censorship, so I was allowed to read whatever I damn well pleased. I never even heard of Elsie Dinsmore. I was too busy reading Piers Anthony.

And in spite of my taste for Mr. Pervypants (that's what I'm calling Piers these days) books, the only books that have ever really squicked me out are V.C. Andrews.

[bea]

My parents didn't do censorship either - if I was old enough to reach it, I was old enough to read it. This meant I was reading "The Feminine Mystique" at nine, though I didn't get much out of it.

Hence why I've only discovered Elsie Dinsmore at the age of 38 and I can't stop reading it. It's so utterly horrifying. How many Elsie Dinsmore books are there, anyway?

[duplessis3]

Mr. Pervypants? Why?

Humbert Humbert- I'm always amazed at the men that don't see him as a pervert but rather as an accurate describer of his experience.