Cinderella Jane, by Marjorie Benton Cooke, has a lot of things in it that I love. The quiet girl who cleans all the artists’ studios turns out to be awesome! And beautiful! The hero is kind of a dork! The heroine and this girl who was in love with the hero become best friends! He/she fell in love with his/her wife/husband! A wife in a mental institution!
All these are awesome things, and they’re not the only ones, but Cinderella Jane mostly didn’t work for me for two reasons: first, there was a lot of philosophizing of the kind that can be uncomfortable for a modern reader. And second, no one has ever, in the history of the world, spoken like this:
“Jane, heart of me, I feel as if all the problems in the world were settled for us!”
She looked up at him, and shook her head, smiling.
“Dear big, little boy-husband, our problems are just beginning. We’re looking at them squarely for the first time!”
“But we’re looking at them together, Jane.”
“Yes, thanks be to love! Jerry, my husband, what a world! I want to cry out, with a loud voice, I want to praise the Lord, with trumpets and with shawms!”
I tried to write a real review of this book, I promise. But honestly, do you need to know anything else? If the lines I quote above make you wince/cringe/cry, you will probably not enjoy this book. If they don’t, you’ll probably enjoy it a lot, because pretty much everything else in Cinderella Jane is really, really fun.
Tagged: 1910s, he/she fell in love with his/her wife/husband, marjoriebentoncooke, romance, stupid
It sounds good and I think I can overlook that kind of talk, which seems to have been common in books of that time period. I see that Marjorie Benton Cooke also wrote Bambi. My 4th grade teacher read that to us and I had to struggle not to cry when Bambi’s mom died. So as long as no deer are harmed in this book, I think I’ll like it.
Your quoted lines are moderately silly, I’ll admit, but then that kind of thing seems to have been “done” in novels of the period. I skim them pretty much automatically. And I do love the rest of it.
I’m afraid the preceding commenter will be disappointed, though – it’s a totally different “Bambi”.
I realize it’s not like Bambi (I don’t like animal stories anyway, because something bad always happens to someone). I just don’t want any sad tear-jerking scenes!
That is, weirdly enough, an entirely different Bambi. The one with the deer is by Felix Salten, an Austrian author who wrote several animal stories. Cooke’s Bambi appears to be about a professor’s daughter who marries a playwright, and it looks like it might be worth checking out.
I can usually deal with a lot more silly language than this — I don’t know what made me get so frustrated with Cooke. It’s a shame, because there are so many good things in this book.
I had no idea there was more than one Bambi! Thanks for the info and I hope you read and review this Bambi.
I really liked this book, but when it comes to novels like these, I always seem to be too fond of that “other girl” that loves the hero, and tend to want her to get the guy. And I don’t mean Isabelle. :)
Hark! Forsooth, you had me at “The quiet girl who cleans all the artists’ studios.”
[...] (with a caution to forgive the flowery nonsensical speech patterns) by the ever reliable Melody at Redeeming Qualities. A girl after my own heart [...]