Poor Dear Esme

[slemslempike]

I was going to post and say that we had snow, but then it stopped again. Still bloody cold though.

Not only do neither of the bras I ordered from Figleaves fit, one of them turned out to be a bikini top.

Meeting with WEVH was so-so, but positive overall.

Feeling not too bad at the moment, considering I had about 2/3 hours sleep last night.

And now it's snowing again, so my plan to go to Asda is once again postponed. Although I have to go and meet megolas at half eight for Harry and the Potters (hopefully), so I hope it's stopped by then.

In addition to my excellent book haul at the weekend, I won an ebay item at the weekend, which is Poor Dear Esme. I used PDE for my MA dissertation, and it is an awesome book. Esme is a boy passing as a girl. This is because his father is returning from Abroad to see his child. Unfortunately, the child the father left behind was a girl, whom the guardian lost while at the seaside. Fortunately, the guardian found a replacement in a small boy, who grows up unaware of his beginnings until the father returns. In order to fool the father (to prevent the guardian being imprisoned), Esme is enrolled at a girls' school where he must endure the feminine privations therein. Try as he might, Esme's innate masculinity shines through, and he is eventually unmasked (or defrocked). Luckily, the real girl child is a fellow pupil at the school, so the children are returned to their respective families and all is well. Plus, it was only £4 including postage, and it's a hard to find book. Yay!

Stopped snowing.

Comments

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

That books sounds awesome.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It is simply astounding. Infuriating, but astounding. I will lend it to you if you like, once it has arrived here and I have refreshed my memory of its genius.

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

It sounds very, very subversive. Plus you know, I have a tiny thing about gender-bending.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it's very "girls are crap", but the cross-dressing and subsequent antics are divine! Plus it's really interesting to see which femininities are praised and which decried. It's probably the only mixed sex boarding school story aimed at boys (as opposed to a mixed audience) and is really interesting for that - it's one of only two texts I found where a boy attends a girls' school over the whole of the twentieth century (although I think I missed a third.)

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

It's aimed at boys?!?

Poor Dear Esme quotes

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

“Nature had cast his features in a girlish mould, and had completed the job by giving him a girl’s rosy cheeks and sensitive small mouth”.

“The Moths and the Beetles are two rival societies. The Moths all adore Miss Chadpole, and the Beetles are all in love with Mr. Tonkin, the drawing-master.”

“A mistaken sense of dignity galled him for being under the authority of women, taught – punished, and nagged at by them.”

“he had never had a sister, he told himself, and Christine, like Somebody’s Cocoa, supplied a long-felt want. Other fellows had sisters, and were fond of them. He would pretend to himself that Christine was his sister.”

“The word “chum” was loathsome to him. It was a word which, he held, girls and women used when they thought they were borrowing from the vocabulary of the sterner sex. Among boys it occurred only in antiquated school stories and, he supposed, in certain schools of the baser sort.”

“Between a good boy player and a good girl player there is a great gulf fixed. If he played a St. Mildred’s, Esme knew that he must stand out as a giant among pigmies.”

“to the accompaniment of bird-like twitterings and soprano screams - which was the nearest to “cheering” that the girls on either side could accomplish”

“Two of the goals came from his own stick, and the other three were scored by Christine from deft passes which he gave her when she was well placed to score. Esme became the hero of the hour, and received the congratulations of both teams…As for Emse, he bore his honours with unaffected modesty. It was a hollow triumph for him, since, after all, he was only playing with girls. Had he chosen, he could straightaway have been the most popular “girl” in the school.”

“There was murder in his heart, but nothing under Heaven would have tempted him to lift his hand against a girl.” Esme cannot hit back when Caroline slaps him. He is therefore branded a coward. This is remedied when he beats up Cuthbert. “For no more than five of those thirty seconds did Cuthbert hold his own. For the remaining twenty-five Esme knocked the pained and bewildered youth all over the bootroom.”

“Don’t you know what a boy is? Trousers – cricket – football – all that sort of thing”

Re: Poor Dear Esme quotes

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

That. Is. So. Brilliant.

Really!!

Re: Poor Dear Esme quotes

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I will send it your way once it arrives.

Re: Poor Dear Esme quotes

[leedy.livejournal.com]

That is FANTASTIC. I must find a copy.

Re: Poor Dear Esme quotes

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just? I'll post more quotes once I get the book - these were just the ones I saved for my dissertation, there were far more glorious statements made.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Poor Dear Esme: the Opera - I quite long for it.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

It is incredibly operatic - not one person notices his manhood, including the episode where he beats up the bootboy, and when he goes to dinner with his father. The wonders of a dress!

[anglaisepaon.livejournal.com]

That book is crying out to be a Movie of the Week.

Now I have to go see if we have it at the library.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I hope you do - everyone should have the chance to read this book. It's often infuriating, and it's very clear that the girls are inferior to Esme by being girls (less truthful, less honourable, less sporting), but so funny.

Similarly, the best Mills and Boon book ever is Timber Boss, in which the man makes the woman stay with him by stealing her shoes, refuses to let her lock her bedroom door and breaks in when she does, has a teenage girl in love with him because he once spanked her, and when the mand and woman eventually SPOILER!!! fall in love, he remininsces about the time he broke down her bedroom door, saying "I should have followed my first instinct. Or my second!" Gosh, rape or beating!!

[coconutswirl.livejournal.com]

*sighs happily*

That's what I call a real man!