Well, for one thing, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, which is just a pleasingly literary way of saying, "I don't know. I'm inconsistent. So hang me."
For another thing, they were the first real Christian fiction I ever read, as my mother didn't care for the genre and we didn't have it in the house. I met the genre, and GLH, in college through a college room-mate. So there's that affection and comfortable sensation we often feel for what we first meet, and I do like comfort food when I don't feel well emotionally or physically. I mentioned getting two broken teeth pulled? Did I mention dry socket? 'nuff said.
And there's also this; even though they are formula fiction, the sentence structure and vocabulary of 1920's formula fiction is still more complex than today's.
And finally, there is this:
In one of my posts about this weakness of mine, our friend from the UK, Baleboosteh, wrote:
I also find the period detail fascinating especially with regard to what was and what was not considered acceptable behaviour for Christians. Goodness, times have certainly changed.
I agree- I do find the period detail fascinating, the unspoken assumptions about how people will naturally behave, what events and practices are taken for granted. We see this not just in Grace Livingston Hill books, but others written in an older age as well, and perhaps best in some of the books that do not rate as 'classic' literature, because the very thing that they fail at in the literature department is what makes them interesting to me in the social studies department- their very dated language and assumptions, their lack of timelessness.
For instance, in this book published in 1890 I learned that late hours for stores are not a product of our modern era:
On Saturday evenings the stores have to be kept open until eleven o'clock, so many country people are in town.
from New Graft on the Family Tree, by Isabella Macdonald Alden, Grace Livingston Hill's aunt. Published in 1880. I've written briefly about another of Alden's books before. And I posted about another gem from this book a few days ago.
Although better written than Grace Livingston Hill's books, one can still see the attitude skewered with a serrated edge in Credenda Agenda as
"saccharine Victorian feminism," "sentimental and domestic feminism," "an iron regime of domesticity-feminine tastes and values are set up as the standard of godliness and as a genuine regenerative influence," and "the divine influence" as "mediated through a woman. Men can be converted by listening to a pretty voice..."I don't always agree with Credenda Agenda, nor am I always comfortable with the extremes to which that serrated edge can go, but I can't argue that there is something saccharine, sentimental and a little squirm-worthy about the manipulations of the little lady in this book. Still, it was an interesting and informative read. In fact, there was a section I found very eye-opening.
The story is about a young newlywed couple who are both Christians, but they are living with his family who are rather worldly and not at all interested in Christianity and do not consider themselves Christians.
Their first Sunday in the home the young bride is shocked to learn they do not go to church of the weather is inconvenient (although they will go to town for the same weather on week-days), and that they do not 'keep the Sabbath' as she has expected. However, they do keep Sunday as a day off from all farm work except what is necessary for the care of the animals, and these unbelievers in America of 1890 do the following of a Sunday:
The all sit together in the kitchen all day. And sit. And sit. Because it's a day of rest, you see. Even though they are behind on working the butter and getting the eggs ready for market on Monday, they don't work on those things. They sit. Because... well, that whole day of rest thing.
The mother has the youngest child practice reading- from the Family Bible.
And on Sundays when the weather is good, most of them go to church.
As for their manners and customs the rest of the week, I can only say the behavior Mrs. Alden assumed was typical of the nonChristians in 1890 is what a good many Christians of today would disdain and call 'legalism,' while the behavior of a good many professing Christians of today is such that Mrs. Alden wouldn't even have ascribed it unbelievers in her books. Pin It
