Week 4, Book 4
Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.
Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 180 pages)
Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi
Revised text publication date: 1961
Original text publication date: 1930
My edition printed: approx. 1977
Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson
Editor: Harriet Otis Smith
Revised by: Patricia Doll
Setting: River Heights and Lilac Inn in Benton (down the river from River Heights)
Originally published in 1930 and written by Mildred Wirt, I will be reviewing the revised edition of The Mystery at Lilac Inn, published in 1961 and pictured above. With the help of a very informative site, series-books.com, I have been having fun dating the printing of my Nancy Drew books, or at least, narrowing down the years. This cover of The Mystery at Lilac Inn with the strip of yellow at the top was in print from 1974-1986. The back cover of mine lists the books in this series up to book 54, Strange Message in the Parchment, which was published in 1977. Which means my edition likely dates from 1977. Fun, right?
There are a lot of online resources with a wealth of knowledge on Nancy Drew books, in specific, and other vintage children’s series and Jennifer White’s website is one of them. If you are at all interested in learning about collecting Nancy Drew books, I can recommend her site and her blog, of which, I have only scratched the surface. She has a wealth of knowledge to share!
Now, let’s curl up with a nourishing hot chocolate and get into The Mystery at Lilac Inn…
Nancy Drew and her good friend, Helen Corning, paddle from River Heights along the river to visit Emily Willoughby and her aunt at Lilac Inn in Benton. Emily and her fiancé, Dick Farnham, have bought the inn and are planning to run it together. Emily has asked Nancy and Helen to be bridesmaids at her wedding, so the girls are anticipating lots of chat about wedding plans (Lilac 2). Along the way, Nancy finds out she has a double walking around River Heights (1), their canoe capsizes (2), and the closest male doesn’t come to their rescue (4). Helen is indignant, but Nancy laughs the incident off. Although, Nancy is curious about what could have upset their canoe.
Once at the inn Emily gives them a tour of the property and while Dick is away in New York working on publicity for the inn, they meet Dick’s best man, “handsome, well-built” Sergeant John McBride (5). It’s clear that something is bothering Emily and when one of the gardeners tells her he is quitting, it’s the last straw. Emily confides that a mysterious enemy is trying to jinx Lilac Inn. Reports of a ghost, a stolen lilac tree, a record player playing with no one around, and a forced window are enough to put Emily’s nerves in tatters. Thank goodness, Nancy is on the scene, and to think Emily was planning to keep her problems to herself!
What follows is a case of stolen identity, stolen diamonds, and stolen… well, let’s try to keep that part under wraps!
In this one, Nancy uncovers her impersonator, gets accused of stealing, discovers a secret passage, learns a lot about lilacs, comes up with a few wild theories that all somehow all fit together, and she still has time to go skin diving, discuss bridesmaid dresses, eat 13 meals, attend a steak cookout and singalong, and flirt with Sergeant John McBride. She may not be engaged like every other young woman is in this book, but she sure isn’t too busy solving mysteries to appreciate when a good-looking man enjoys her company!
Time of year
In my last post, I argued that The Bungalow Mystery must have been set during the last week of July. I had a lot of proofs to back up my theory and I was very confident that I was correct within a week or so either way and I am still certain I got it right. So perhaps you can imagine how excited I was to read the following at the end of that book.
Nancy suddenly felt a sense of loneliness and realized it was because her work on the case was at an end. Would another mystery come her way to solve? she wondered. And it did. In less than a week, Nancy was facing up to the challenge of The Mystery at Lilac Inn. (Bungalow 179; emphasis added)
That’s my job figuring out when the next one is set done and dusted, or so I thought. Imagine my confusion when I came across this passage at the start of The Mystery of Lilac Inn.
The next second something rammed the canoe violently. The impact capsized the craft, hurling Nancy and Helen into the chilly May water. (2; emphasis added)
Silly me. Of course, Nancy wouldn’t be visiting a place called Lilac Inn when the lilacs weren’t in bloom! This book had to be set in May. And so, as I pointed out when we were discussing when The Hidden Staircase was set, we have to accept that time is fluid in these books and we have to suspend our disbelief. Getting annoyed at the utter disregard for reader expectation and intelligence is not going to help anything, or so I remind myself!
The Secret of the Old Clock took place over 11 days, The Hidden Staircase is set over eight, The Bungalow Mystery is set over six days, and the main action in this one takes place over seven days. That’s a total of 32 days and if Nancy continued with an average of eight days per mystery with no breaks in between her eighteenth year would have 448 days in it, because Nancy doesn’t age in this series. Regular timelines do not apply here.
Okay, so on the upside, we know for a certainty that this book is set in May when lilacs are in bloom.
When the canoe came abreast of the dock, Nancy secured it to a post. The girls hopped out and started up the path that led to the inn. On both sides of the path were groves of lilac trees which displayed a profusion of blooms, from creamy white to deep purple. (5)
What a good thing Nancy and Helen aren’t visiting Lilac Inn during August, as I had expected them to be! By then all of the lilac blooms would be long gone.
Location
Nancy and Helen said good-by and paddled off upstream. The Angus River, a tributary of the Muskoka, was banked on either side with dense shrubbery, willow trees, and wild flowers.
“We’re almost to Benton,” Nancy said. “The old inn should be just beyond the next bend.” (2)
The Lilac Inn and the town of Benton is close enough to River Heights that Nancy and Helen are able to paddle there by canoe in a short amount of time. We know this because along the way, they pass by their friend, Doris Drake, weeding a flower garden at her home along the riverbank. From Doris, they find out that Nancy’s double is walking around River Heights.
They come to this conclusion when Doris says, “My friend Phyl told me on the phone just half an hour ago that she’d talked with you, Nancy, at the Elite Drug Store in River Heights” (1). While Doris is surprised to see Nancy and Helen paddling to her spot on the river within half an hour of being spotted in River Heights, she doesn’t automatically assume Phyl’s claim that she talked to Nancy to be incorrect. When Nancy says that it couldn’t have been her, they were paddling at the time, Helen jokes, “'You must have a double, Nancy. Better watch out!'” (1).
They manage to arrive at Lilac Inn before lunch, and that’s with stoping to chat with Doris, capsizing their canoe, and doing a quick underwater investigation to look for what caused the collision.
Lilac Inn is on the water and has its own dock, as we found out earlier and Nancy and Helen are staying in one of the new cottages.
John carried their bags, as Emily led the way along a shrubbed path which opened onto the spacious lawn surrounding Lilac Inn. Helen and Nancy looked with admiration at the historic hotel, erected in Revolutionary times.
"Here are the new guest cottages," Emily said, as they reached a group of twelve trim white units.
"And this one is where you'll stay." (6)
Later we get a more detailed view of the inn itself.
The girls went to the front of the inn, a two-story clapboard building with a one-level wing on either side. All around it were lilac trees and other flowering bushes. Nancy and Helen mounted the wide steps and entered the center hall. Its paneled walls, old staircase, and beautiful cut-glass chandelier made them feel as though they had stepped back into an earlier century. (7)
It sounds like a beautiful place, or it will be, once Nancy uncovers the person who is causing all of the disturbances!
Thoughts on The Mystery at Lilac Inn
I’m going to confess, while I enjoyed this book, I found that when I reached the end I still had no idea about what I wanted to write about. As I had the opposite problem with the first three books in the series, I found myself wondering why. Sure, it might simply have been a case of me feeling overwhelmed, as I often do when faced with a task. But what if my lack of inspiration had nothing to do with me? Blaming something other than myself for my lack of ideas, there’s something can get on board with!
So I got to thinking about all of the reasons I love The Bungalow Mystery. There’s a car chase, which I enjoyed and remember enjoying immensely as a child. But beyond that, there were more sinister characters, more intrigue, and it felt like Nancy was putting herself in more dangerous situations. Yes, there were a ton of coincidences and Carson Drew’s current case just happened to tie in with Nancy’s, but doesn’t it always? Not in this one, you will be surprised to find out. Although, one of the baddies does impersonate Nancy in a bid to get back at Carson who proved she was guilty of check forgery and was sent to prison because of it (163).
Anyway, here are some of my issues with this one.
Nancy lacks agency
She still runs towards danger instead of from it. There are plenty of screams, cries, and crashes in this one. I counted eight occurrences where a loud sound interrupted a scene (9, 15, 42, 77, 82, 134, 153, 170), one of which is when Nancy herself stifles a scream when she sees a grotesque shape emerge from the water when she is out on the grounds alone at night (153). No shame there! We all get startled sometimes, Nancy.
However, on two occasions Nancy is in a tight place and is quickly saved by the police instead of solving the problem herself, as she was capable of doing in the first three books.
She knew it would be difficult to get out of the muddy ditch. “Well, I’ll have to try,” she decided. “Here goes!”
She tried to rock the car gently back and forth to gain momentum. The right tires spun crazily and sank lower into the mire.
Nancy tried again. No use. She feared it might be some time before a care would come along in this deserted area. Finally she decided to search for some objects to force under the right wheels for traction.
Just then, Nancy heard an automobile approaching. “Thank goodness!” she murmured a moment later. “A State Police car.” (36-37)
This first occurrence feels innocent enough. Nancy doesn’t have a chance to get her car out of the ditch herself, because a State Police car shows up on the scene almost immediately. Unlikely, but fine. We come to accept that in Nancy Drew Land, pleasant police officers appear on the scene just when we need them.
The scene that bothered me was this one.
She was lying on the cabin floor where she had been thrown, and was trying to loosen the ropes which bound her.
Nancy glanced around the tiny cabin. It had two bunks, a table, and a chair. “Even if I could work myself free, there’s no escape route,” she thought. (162)
I’m sorry. Didn’t we just find out in the book before this that a detective friend of Nancy’s father showed her how to hold her hands when someone was tying her up, so she could slip free after? Yes. Yes, we did (Bungalow 125). And we saw her put that knowledge to the test.
Just then Nancy thought she had found the trick to freeing her hands, but a moment later she sighed in discouragement. The robe still bound her wrists.
[…]
Suddenly Nancy felt the rope which chaffed her wrists slacken. (130)
But in The Mystery at Lilac Inn Nancy seems to have lost that knowledge. Perhaps The Bungalow Mystery happens in the future and not in the past as the order of these books would lead us to believe? Okay, I’ll put that can of worms aside for now.
Until now, Nancy had not fully believed that her captors would let her perish. But she was left bound hand and foot, aboard a sinking vessel!
Suddenly Nancy sniffed the acrid smell of smoke—the fire was spreading! She screamed for help until her throat was hoarse. Then, about to faint, Nancy heard an answering shout, and the sound of a boat puling up outside the porthole.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed fervently.
Shortly, two men in River Police Patrol uniforms hurried into the cabin. They quickly untied Nancy and carried her on deck. (Lilac 171)
Instead of solving the mystery and saving herself at the climax, Nancy gets captured by the gang and uncovers most of the mystery because the big baddie is a Chatty Cathy. Then when Nancy is left to die on a sinking boat with an engine fire, she screams for someone to come help her instead of reserving her energy to save herself. What a disappointment!
What happened to the Nancy who broke out of a closet in The Secret of the Old Clock, or shed her bonds in The Bungalow Mystery, or drove so fast in The Hidden Staircase that she didn’t dare take her eyes off the road? Does Nancy need a vacation? Or is all the talk of her friends’ impending nuptials bringing her down?
Because that is another thing…
Every young woman is engaged to be married
We have already established that Emily is engaged to Dick Farnham. Listen to how Emily introduces Helen and Nancy to Dick’s best man.
“Now don’t go making up to my friends, John,” Emily teased. “Helen is engaged to Jim Archer, who has a position with an oil company overseas, and Nancy—well, she’s mighty busy these days.” (5-6)
Emily isn’t wrong. Nancy has to solve 56 mysteries before she turns 19. So, yes. She is very busy. But consider this bit from the end of the book at a party on the eve of Emily’s wedding.
Later, as Nancy, Helen, and Emily were talking, the two older girls suddenly stopped speaking on the subject of their forthcoming weddings. Helen said, “Goodness, Nancy, you must be tired of hearing us talk about steady partners when—”
Nancy interrupted. Laughing gaily, she said, “Not at all. For the present, my steady partner is going to be mystery!” (180)
I love Nancy’s response here. But I am a little annoyed by how both Emily and Helen talk about Nancy’s love of solving mysteries and her lack of a “steady partner”. I don’t think there is any malicious intent here. I believe it’s a case of them accepting Nancy as she is, but at the same time not understanding how she couldn’t want what they have.
Even the baddie of the piece is engaged, although her fiancé is nothing to write home about.
At that moment the cabin door opened. A man Nancy had not yet seen stood there. He was tall and dark, with thin features.
Gay introduced him as Simon, her fiancé. “You talk too much, Gay,” he growled. (167)
Oh, and we find out that Gay’s sister, who is 27, is married when Gay introduces her brother-in-law (160).
Three engaged women in one book proved to be too much for me, so I did a little digging.
According to the American Census Report for 1960, “The youngest age at which fewer than half of all persons were still single was 20 for females and 23 for males.” Oh, and in 1960, “Eight in ten of all women 25 to 49 years old were married and living with their husband.”
At 18 years old without a steady boyfriend in sight, Nancy may very well have stood out among her peers.
Which begs the question, if Nancy wants to make a career out of crime solving, why isn’t she in university studying criminology or some other related field? According to one source, (it's from Wikipedia, but the statistics come from a cited source so they might actually be correct), 35% of bachelor’s degrees were earned by women in 1960 and 10.5% of doctorates. So there goes my theory that university might not have been viewed as an acceptable option for Nancy.
Can you see Nancy settling down to a husband and children in the next couple of years? I can’t. But what bothers me is that while Nancy enjoys solving mysteries, it’s treated like her cute little quirk instead of her vocation. Why don’t these books allow Nancy a future in a field she loves? Or are we supposed to assume that Nancy is going to live in her father’s house, forever sponging off of his wealth derived from a successful career in law, while she continues to accumulate trinkets and gifts for a job well done, but not actually getting paid for her hard work and intelligence?
Perhaps, a better question is, why does this issue bother me so much?
Let’s give Nancy, and her creators, the credit they both deserve. Because Nancy has not entirely been neglecting her education since graduating from high school. At the start of this book she has just completed a course in advanced skin diving. An article in the River Heights Evening News mentions that she finished first among the twenty in her group. Nicely done, Nancy! And guess what? She puts those newly acquired skills to use in solving this mystery. Who would have thought?!
So, tell me. What is the one thing about Nancy Drew, or your favourite series, that irks you? What is the one thing that you are meant to overlook? But try as you might, you simply cannot! I would love to hear all of the mad, ridiculous, and worrying things about your favourite books that as a reader you are expected to smile and accept.
Favourite Quotation
So this quotation is a little random, but here goes…
A jinx on Lilac Inn! Nancy and Helen stared at Emily in astonishment.
“Tell us about it,” Nancy urged her friend. (11)
I can’t help but picture Nancy, with glittering eyes, gesturing that Emily should sit down, while doing a very poor job of disguising how excited she is at hearing her friend has a mystery that needs solving. Nancy’s eager anticipation radiates off the page and as a child I found it infectious. Okay, I still find that energy a bit catching!
No comments:
Post a Comment