Alice in Albion

EMMA THOMPSON as ELINOR DASHWOOD and KATE WINSLET as MARIANNE DASHWOOD

It's a secret garden. Secrets are safe with me.

Full Snow Moon over Ely Cathedral

Thank you @dvoeverie-stitches for inviting me to read this with you all this March!

It was honestly delightful to return to this book after about twenty years away from it. I'm surprised at how much of it had stuck with me, as well as how enduring Burnett's writing is.

Throughout the story, "magic" is talked about as a pervasive force of hope and growth, possibility and connection. The characters make a mention or two of "black magic" as well, but it's not explored. Burnett gives her characters "magic" as a code both for a lovely sort of non-denominational god and for the vigorous force of life itself. One relevant line which stuck with me came near the end of the book, when laying out a somewhat magical occurrence: "I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to be able to explain."

There are some funny moments in the dialogue, both "funny" in the sense that I was laughing aloud and "funny" as in the sorts of racial and class tension innate to a generally benevolent book written for a very early-1900s audience. There is a way to read the story as casually racist or xenophobic, but I truly don't think it is, at its core. The lessons learned through the eyes of young Mary read more to me like an encouragement to connect to the land and get your hands dirty, get to know the everyday people around you, and communicate with the growing world outdoors, which may or may not be god. The fact that these values come in stark contrast to Mary's past as a cooped up tyrannical child colonizer in India makes an argument for a rather benevolent stance, in my opinion.

It was certainly shocking, though presumably not uncommon, how absent the father was in his son's melancholic illness. The story's approach to illness broadly seems just as ridiculous. But I'm sure there's a heap of post-Victorian context I'm missing, and I can imagine that Burnett's narrative suggestion to shoo rich spoiled brats out of the house and into the garden and to speak with real, hardworking people was quite the radical stance in her day. But by Jove, the Cravens could have paid Martha a better wage and supported her family in some simple way. Anyway, I somehow forgot that a whole bunch of the characters share my last name. That was fun.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.