Lorna Doone (1869)

Brilliant, once I got into the way it was written then I realised it was kind of old english style. Great story in a dramatic part of England which I have now visited as a result of reading it.

I tried to read this once years ago and couldn’t make it because the language was too hard. Which is odd, because I found it a very easy and entertaining read! John Ridd’s voice is a marvel–an Exmoor (Devon and Somerset) farmer overlaid with a classical education, with a good helping of wry self-awareness. While Lorna is a bit of a damsel in distress, I really enjoyed this one. ( )

Library of Mary J. Bowyer

Written in 1869, Lorna Doone tells the tale of John Ridd, an honest country farmer in 17th century western England, who must stand up to a family of thieves who have not only murdered his father but who live in open defiance of the law, and who have a woman in their midst, Lorna Doone, whom he fell in love with as a boy.

One has to enter into the world in which the novel was written in order to enjoy it, for there are a few things to not like, starting with the characterization of women as “weaker vessels”. Yes, all the stereotypes are here, from the damsel in distress to the shrewish intellectual to the worrying mother to the attractive sister who needs protecting from the advances of men. While a romance novel, it’s not clear how well lines like “I always think that women, of whatever mind, are best when least they meddle with the things that appertain to men” will play to a modern woman.

As in other 19th century romance literature, plot devices are a little too convenient, characters are often simplistic, and motivations are at times highly questionable; for example, John’s complete chivalry in the face of the evil Carver Doone on more than one occasion (dude … kill him already!). The book seems to be a prototype for many a Disney tale in our century, and I’m not sure that’s a good way to recommend it.

And yet I found myself liking it. Maybe it’s because the edition I was reading was itself very old, printed in 1873, and owned previously by a Elinor Hickey long ago, which somehow made reading this outside in the sunshine more enjoyable. The color illustrations are simple and few in number, but also charming.

I found myself pulling for a relatively minor character, little Ruth Huckabuck, who John is also attracted to, both for her spirit and her attractiveness (he looks at her “ruddily” while she “stoops down for pots and pans”, openly compliments her “pretty eyes”, and believes there is “something in this child, very different from other girls”). One of the most memorable scenes in the book is when she overhears John’s mother demean her as a little dwarf, and stands up for herself with a carefully measured speech dripping with sarcasm (oddly, that she would do so, instead of being ‘polite’ and feigning not to hear, was considered rude). Another is when despite flirtation in the air and a “great mind to kiss her”, John drops a bomb on her, asking if she will come dance at his wedding with Lorna. I penciled “ouch” into the margin on that one. And I’ll set aside any symbolic reading into his fervently sucking the venom out of her arm in other scene, after a nasty horse bite, and her “doubt about my meaning, and the warmth of my osculation.”

The acceptance of highwaymen was a curious phenomenon in the book: in Tom Faggus’s case it actually turned into adulation as he was “charming” about it, and in the Doone’s case, it was despite their stealing away local women and children on their raids.

There are many other great scenes: the look of the elderly and dying Ensor Doone who John approaches for Lorna’s hand, the treacherous ‘Counsellor’ to the Doone’s hoodwinking John’s naïve sister out of a very valuable diamond necklace, a mysterious bog and noises in the night, the political unrest between Protestants and Catholics that results in a Captain roaming the countryside hanging people arbitrarily, without trial, and John coming to Lorna’s rescue, blanketed by a giant snowfall. Yes, the big strong man rescuing the woman he is devoted to and willing to risk life and limb for after somewhat infrequent meetings over the course of years.

It’s an 800+ page book which was a bit daunting, as in, do I really want to devote this much time to this book, despite its age and the great bookstore I found it in? But it’s never boring, and there is plenty of action from beginning to end. I could be rounding up just a teeny bit on my review score, but did find it enjoyable.

Quotes:
On children:
“I myself was to and fro among the children continually; for if I love anything in the world, foremost I love children. They warm, and yet they cool our hearts, as we think of what we were, and what in young clothes we hoped to be; and how many things have come across. And to see our motives moving in the little things, that know not what their aim or object is, must almost, or ought at least, to lead us home, and soften us. For either end of life is home; both source, and issue, being God.”

On crime, ala Dylan’s “steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king”:
“But after all, I could not see … why Tom Faggus, working hard, was called a robber, and felon of great; while the king, doing nothing at all (as became his dignity), was liege-lord, and paramount-owner; with everybody to thank him kindly, for accepting tribute.”

And:
“The robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next.”

On hope, and religion:
“Hope, for instance, is nothing more than desire with a telescope, magnifying distant matters, overlooking near ones; opening one eye on the objects, closing the other to all objections. And if hope be the future tense of desire, the future tense of fear is religion – at least with too many of us.”

On lawyers:
“…the three learned professions live by roguery on the three parts of man. The doctor mauls our bodies; the parson starves our souls; but the lawyer must be the adroitest knave, for he has to ensnare our minds. Therefore he takes a careful delight in covering his traps and engines with a spread of deadleaf words, whereof himself knows little more than half the way to spell them.”

On love:
“’No doubt it is all over!’ my mind said to me bitterly: ‘Trust me, all shall yet be right!’ my heart replied very sweetly.”

On Victorian ‘lust’:
“’I am behaving,’ I replied, ‘to the very best of my ability. There is no other man in the world could hold you so, without kissing you.’
‘Then why don’t you do it, John?’ asked Lorna, looking up at me, with a flash of her old fun.”

On marriage, this is the elder Doone’s view:
“All marriage is a wretched farce, even when man and wife belong to the same rank of life, have temper well assorted, similar likes and dislikes, and about the same pittance of mind. But when they are not so matched, the farce would become a long dull tragedy, if anything were worth lamenting.”

On motherhood:
“…only feel, or but remember, what a real mother is. Ever loving, ever soft, ever turning sin to goodness, vices into virtues; blind to all nine-tenths of wrong; through a telescope beholding (though herself so nigh to them) faintest decimals of promise, even in her vilest child.”

On nature:
“The willow-bushes over the stream hung as if they were angling, with tasseled floats of gold and silver, bursting like a bean-pod. Between them came the water laughing, like a maid at her own dancing, and spread that young blue which never lives beyond the April. And on either bank, the meadow ruffled, as the breeze came by, opening (through tufts of green) daisy-bud or celandine, or a shy glimpse now and then of the love-lorn primrose.
Though I am so blank of wit, or perhaps for that same reason, these little things come and dwell with me; and I am happy about them, and long for nothing better. I feel with every blade of grass, as if it had a history; and make a child of every bud, as though it knew and loved me. And being so, they seem to tell me of my own oblivious [sic], how I am no more than they, except in self-importance.”

On religion:
“But whatever lives or dies, business must be attended to; and the principal business of good Christians is, beyond all controversy, to fight with one another.”

And:
“For even in the New Testament, discarding many things of the Old, such as sacrifices, and Sabbath, and fasting, and other miseries, witchcraft is clearly spoken of as a thing that must continue; that the Evil One be not utterly robbed of his vested interests. Hence let no one tell me that witchcraft is done away with…”

On French wine:
“But to bring it over to England, and set it against our home-brewed ale (not to speak of wines from Portugal), and sell it at ten times the price, as a cure for English bile, and a great enlightenment; this I say is the vilest feature of the age we live in.”

On women:
“The carried off many good farmers’ daughters, who were sadly displeased at first; but took to them kindly after awhile, and made a new home in their babies. For women, it seems to me, like strong men more than weak ones, feeling that they need some staunchness, something to hold fast by.”

“But you may take this as a general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man whom she loves, and cannot stop always to balance it.”

“…there are, and always have been, plenty of women, good and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, and loveable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the right, be it by reason, or otherwise. And upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of my own sex, as goodness of heart is more important than to show good reason for having it.”

“For nine women out of ten must have some kind of romance or other, to make their lives endurable; and when their love has lost this attractive element, this soft dew-fog (if such it be), the love itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be well replaced by the budding hopes of children.” ( )

As you can see from the condition of the cover of my book, it has been read many many times. This is an 'adapted' version of the story and when I was young I must have read it a hundred times. It is an excellent rendition of the story with many very dramatic wood-cut illustrations. John is terribly handsome, Lorna is beautiful and the terrible Doones are frighteningly wild. I had been given book plates to use in 'my' books, complete with my name printed on them, and this one was "NUMBER ONE". If you can find this version of the story, it is a wonderful way to introduce this thrilling classic to younger people. ( )