published 1963
[excerpt] Even in the vicarage it was known that the Russian ballet
was in London. Miss French [headmistress at the girls’ school] had seen the
ballet in Paris the previous year and had determined then and there that as
many of her girls as possible must see the company when they visited London…
It never crossed the girls’ minds that they could see the
Russians, but Victoria determined to learn all about them at second-hand…
The week after the school visited the ballet, Victoria was
sitting [at lunch] listening eagerly, trying to catch some of the magic from
what they said.
‘I could have watched the Polovtsian Dancers forever,’ one
girl stated. ‘Those jumps!’
‘What about Spectre de la Rose?’ sighed another.
‘Wasn’t Nijinsky wonderful?’ gasped a third.
Miss French’s precise voice cut through these eulogies.
‘For myself the ballet I must see again
is Scheherezade. The colour! The exquisitely balanced whole!’
Victoria leaned across. ‘What was the ballet about the
rose? Was someone dressed as a rose? Did they dance on their toes?’
To Miss French Victoria’s questions sounded puerile. What
did the child imagine? A music hall turn. ‘If you have nothing more sensible
than that to ask, Victoria, I should say nothing at all.’
ADDED LATER: I have subsequently realised that the ballet mentioned features in a different Noel Streatfeild book - one written for adults under the name Susan Scarlett. See the blogpost for more, and more pictures. The book is called Pirouette....
comments: Oh dear oh dear. This book came up in my Xmas entries in
December – see
this post for explanation. It is a lightly-fictionalized
autobiographical account of Noel Streatfeild’s childhood – she is Victoria.
This unhappy moment is typical of what happens to her
throughout – it is quite sad how very out of place she always feels. She and
her two sisters are very much the daughters of the vicar, and of the vicarage,
and the impact on their lives is hard. There is never any money for extras,
such as the ballet, their clothes are always awful, and even when allowed to go
to a birthday party in Lent, they are expected not to have any food treats. At school there is a Greek Play, a subject of some interest here on the blog, though sadly not much is made of it, because
yet another unfairness in Victoria’s life is that she is not offered a part in
it.
It is all a bit much, although the book is still a good
read, with some nice moments.
But it is a very strange book. I read it when I was a child
and was very disappointed, thinking it would be more like Ballet Shoes
(such a favourite of mine, then and now, all
over the blog). Later on, thinking about it, I wondered if
wasn’t aimed at children at all – but that’s not right, it is definitely a
children’s book, published now by Puffin.
And Victoria is going to win
through. After the ballet-snubbing incident, she does her version of Scarlett
O’Hara: ‘I don’t know how I’ll do it, but when I grow up, somehow I’ll have
enough money to do all the things other people do – Coronation, ballet,
everything… You wait, all of you, and see.’
She later (after discovering
the existence of sleeper trains) vows: ‘When I’m grown up I won’t do anything,
not even go on a train, unless I can go in the best way there is!’
You feel that Streatfeild
made good on all this for herself.
At one point, after being
treated unfairly (yet again), Victoria says to herself ‘This is something I am
never going to forget. I’ll always see myself on this day, and remember how it
felt when people were cruel and I was thirteen.’ And she certainly used those
feelings in her books, reaching out to children of all eras.
Although Victoria does have a hard time, the author is very fair-minded and shows that she could be difficult-verging-on-impossible, and hard to help. She reminded me somewhat of Jo March from Little Women – see my revisionist post here.
------------------------------
Now, poor Victoria had no way of finding out about the
Ballet Russe. Luckily for my readers there
is a blogpost featuring Spectre
of the Rose, and with photos of Nijinsky – yes he is dressed in a costume
of rose petals, which had to be touched up with a curling iron each night – and
with links to other fascinating goings-on.
The pictures available of the Russian Ballet, which came to London in 1912, are amazing so this seemed a great opportunity to show some of them. Diaghilev was the impresario, Nijinsky the main male dancer, and Bakst designed the costumes and sets.
Picture of Nijinky in his costume for Scheherezade: Library of congress
Nijinsky on the floor: NYPL
Bakst’s room set for Scheherazade
I thought of Jo March, too, Moira, when I was reading your post! Sometimes these sorts of books can bring the reader a bit down. I think that may be especially true if the book is somewhat (or very) autobiographical. Still, I understand exactly how she feels about the ballet; I've always liked ballet myself, and when I was a child, that's what I wanted to do. It didn't happen, but still, I have sympathy for her on that score.
ReplyDeleteOh Margot I didn't know that about you! It's amazing what resonates with a person - and how something can suddenly wake up memories and feelings from the past.
DeleteYou can almost smell the vicarage smell in that book. Poor Victoria, she had a tough time and made it very much tougher for herself. Her saintly father seems to have been absolutely tone deaf when it came to his own family. The Bell Family tells a much more cheerful version of the story. Le Spectre de la Rose is mentioned in Rumer Godden's Thursday's Children. It must have made a huge impression at the time.
ReplyDeleteYes it is wholly convincing, even though it is clearly seen through her eyes, and might have seemed different to someone else.
DeleteI have just realized that there is a performance of Spectre in one of her (NS's) books for adults - Pirouette, and that I blogged on it at the time! https://clothesinbooks.blogspot.com/2017/08/pirouette-by-susan-scarlettnoel.html
I will add it above also
It's amazing to modern eyes just how horrible the adults are to children: I can't imagine a modern teacher being quite so cutting to a child who asked an innocent question.
ReplyDeleteI know, some things have improved! And it is wholly believable, because similar scenes in many descriptions of childhood.
DeleteYou say 'Later on, thinking about it, I wondered if wasn’t aimed at children at all – but that’s not right, it is definitely a children’s book, published now by Puffin.'
ReplyDeleteI agree that it feels quite different in tone from her other children's books. But my childhood copy had a peacock logo, rather than a puffin, and my understanding at the time was that this meant it was intended for older readers.
I just googled 'peacock puffin books' and found the website http://www.penguinfirsteditions.com/index.php?cat=mainPK, which said of Peacock books 'Penguin attempted to make the transition between children's and adult reading with this series, intending to pitch it somewhere between the two.' The website has a list of the Peacock books published - A Vicarage Family was number 64 of 65 - but the whole list is quite eclectic. And there were some choices on it that rather surprised me ...
Oh that is so interesting, thank you for the extra info! I remember I used to see the Peacock books and think they were too old for me. I always remember one called Still She Wished For Company, which seemed to me to the most atmospheric title.
DeleteI've just looked at the list - what treasures! I loved The Flight of the Heron, and also remember Viper of Milan. I loved dramatic history.
It is, as you say, a very very wide range: kudos to them I guess for not trying to send the young readers in one particular direction. I have read a lot of them, and am intrigued by many of the others, am going to go through that list again. Thanks so much for pointing it out to me.
I am not sure I have ever reread this series but I remember how excited I was to find the first book in some library and, like you, expected something more upbeat. The fathers in Noel's books are definitely portrayed as sweet if clueless, which may be nicer than Mr. Streatfeild deserved.
ReplyDeleteI never got past the first year of ballet (despised the transparent leotard we were made to wear) but I would have loved to go see the Russian ballet. Unlike Victoria, I would have been reading up on it in the school library.
Oh firm comment on Victoria there! parents generally don't come out well in Noel S, though that is always a feature to make life more adventurous for children.
DeleteI wasn't a ballet person at all in any way, but I do enjoy reading ballet fiction...
My grandfather was a musicologist and once when my mother was young she was helping him with some article and he referenced a Streatfeild (who turned out to be Noel's father). He warned my mother the "i before e except after c" did not apply, and she said, "Don't worry, this is a surname I know well."
DeleteAlso, my mother and I are big fans of Margaret Irwin, although I think we only found Still She Wished for Company post-Internet.
I have to be firm and conscious about the spelling (and probably get it wrong occasionally) but I did become aware of it early on through manic reading of Ballet Shoes. I raed a few Margaret Irwins - stalwarts of the school library - but don't have clear memories.
Delete