todayiamadaisy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
todayiamadaisy) wrote2012-02-06 03:53 pm
todayiamadaisy) wrote2012-02-06 03:53 pm
Bistre *
After the excitement of The Blue Wall, I am finding my next book something of a comedown. It's called The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (1905). Meredith is man, by the way. Looking on Wikipedia just now to verify my suspicion of that, I find that there are actually two men called Meredith Nicholson worthy of note, which seems unlikely, but there you go. The other one was a cinematographer called Meredith Merle Nicholson. Men. Men called Meredith and Merle. And John Wayne's name was, of course, Marion. I hold hopes of finding an elderly man called Marjory.
Anyway, The House of a Thousand Candles does genuinely seem to be about a house with a lot of candles in it, which puts it well ahead of The Blue Wall for accuracy in titling. Sadly, though, it is entirely too sensible. Even though it is about a young man who angered his grandfather by becoming an engineer instead of an architect, and who has been forced by the terms of his grandfather's will to live for a year studying architecture in his grandfather's house in rural Indiana, where his life is constantly in danger from people trying to find the treasure that his grandfather built into the house, it is still vastly more plausible than The Blue Wall.
Jack's house comes complete with an honourable, capable and MYSTERIOUS manservant called Bates, whom it pleases me to imagine is the chap from Downton Abbey.
One of the other terms in the grandfather's will is that if Jack (the protagonist) doesn't live for a year in this house, ownership of it will default to a woman called Marian Devereux. And if either Jack or Marian gets this house and then marries the other one within five years, ownership will be transferred to an orphanage. So one can have it, or the other, but not both. I'm not really seeing the logic behind that, but maybe all will become clear later on.
Marian hasn't appeared in the text yet (well... Jack spied a mysterious beauty dining with his grandfather's lawyer in a restaurant, and I strongly suspect she will turn out to be Marian, because he has made quite a song and dance about how horrible he thinks she will be), but clearly she and Jack will get married. Although at this stage, he is far more keen on returning to Africa with his best friend, Larry. Jack has devoted whole pages to the awesomeness of Larry, up to and including how he likes to whistle Larry's favourite song. I'm a bit over Larry, to be honest, but I think I'm in for a lot more of him.
Also, this book is educational. So far I have had to look up 'pompano' (the fish that Larry ate in the restaurant scene) and 'naphtha' (in this case, a small boat with a particular type of oil engine). I will never need to use either of those words ever again, so I thought I would give them an airing here.
* Is this really a colour?
Anyway, The House of a Thousand Candles does genuinely seem to be about a house with a lot of candles in it, which puts it well ahead of The Blue Wall for accuracy in titling. Sadly, though, it is entirely too sensible. Even though it is about a young man who angered his grandfather by becoming an engineer instead of an architect, and who has been forced by the terms of his grandfather's will to live for a year studying architecture in his grandfather's house in rural Indiana, where his life is constantly in danger from people trying to find the treasure that his grandfather built into the house, it is still vastly more plausible than The Blue Wall.
Jack's house comes complete with an honourable, capable and MYSTERIOUS manservant called Bates, whom it pleases me to imagine is the chap from Downton Abbey.
One of the other terms in the grandfather's will is that if Jack (the protagonist) doesn't live for a year in this house, ownership of it will default to a woman called Marian Devereux. And if either Jack or Marian gets this house and then marries the other one within five years, ownership will be transferred to an orphanage. So one can have it, or the other, but not both. I'm not really seeing the logic behind that, but maybe all will become clear later on.
Marian hasn't appeared in the text yet (well... Jack spied a mysterious beauty dining with his grandfather's lawyer in a restaurant, and I strongly suspect she will turn out to be Marian, because he has made quite a song and dance about how horrible he thinks she will be), but clearly she and Jack will get married. Although at this stage, he is far more keen on returning to Africa with his best friend, Larry. Jack has devoted whole pages to the awesomeness of Larry, up to and including how he likes to whistle Larry's favourite song. I'm a bit over Larry, to be honest, but I think I'm in for a lot more of him.
Also, this book is educational. So far I have had to look up 'pompano' (the fish that Larry ate in the restaurant scene) and 'naphtha' (in this case, a small boat with a particular type of oil engine). I will never need to use either of those words ever again, so I thought I would give them an airing here.
* Is this really a colour?