http://somethingsdishy.blogspot.com/2... ( )

25 Dec 2008 - present from Ali

A long, satisfying novel written in the early 1900's about the then-contemporary issue of American heiresses marrying into impoverished British aristrocratic families - sometimes without knowing what they were letting themselves in for.

Gentle, girlish Rosalie is picked up by the evil Sir Nigel Anstruthers and dragged off to England where he and his mother manipulate her into paying for - not the restoration of the manor house and village - his dissolute ways on the continent. Her younger sister, the redoutable Betty, has been waiting and plotting until she is old enough to go and rescue Rosy, having formed an early dislike for Sir Nigel. Bravely, but supported by her adoring father, she rushes off to England at the first opportunity, rolls up her sleeves and gets to work on her sister, the house and the village - but has she met her match in the truly evil Sir Nigel? A jolly typewriter salesman, epitomising the American get-up-and-go spirit, serves as a further "shuttle", showing characters for what they are and weaving further links between the US and the UK.

I did enjoy this somewhat melodramatic book (indeed, some characters refer to the melodrama directly, but this does not lessen it) and was spellbound at the rather surprising ending. I most enjoyed the descriptions of how Betty rescues the manor, its gardens and village; Burnett revels in the Weald of Kent countryside and descriptions of gardens, and the robin from The Secret Garden (which she was writing at the same time) even makes an appearance. I liked the next door neighhour and loved the American salesman. Sir Nigel was all evil, without a redeeming feature, which made him a bit one-sided - having recently read the biography of FHB and also noted in the preface to this book, he is a portrait of her husband of the time, and drawing directly from life does sometimes deaden the creativity.

But all in all a good read and a heroine you can admire and root for. ( )

This is an engrossing, page turner. Frances Hodgson Burnett hightlighted the sad plight of many large houses at this time, which being entailed couldn't be sold, but whose owners where so impoverished they were unable to properly maintain them. Her love of the English countryside is obvious in her decriptions of it and the enthusiam of her American charcters for it. Sir Nigel Anstruthers is just about the vilest character I have come up aginst in a book in some time, and you feel Betty's rage and frustration, while rather fearing for her saftey. A book you cannot help but become fully involved in. ( )

I found this to be a very enjoyable read. I liked the observations about English and American society and felt pulled along by the story.

On the negative side, I felt that the characters were drawn too heavily to be entirely believable. The villain is very villainous, his victim very weak, the heroine very strong. Some of the plot was heavily signposted - I can be slow on the uptake, but as soon as the heroine's eyes met those of a man on the liner, I knew that they would end up in a relationship. I feel that Hodgson Burnett used elements of Victorian fiction - the plotline and the characters feel very similar to Wilkie Collin's The Woman in White - and this may explain the element of caricature.

Despite my misgivings about the characters, this was a good read. ( )

Better late than never, I have finished The Shuttle! Perhaps because I was on holiday and feeling particularly magnanimous and less critical than usual, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Whilst I agree that Sir Nigel is bordering on the preposterously horrible, he is also deliciously despicable and debauched, in a silent movie idiom.

As for Rosalie, I found a likeness to her in Isabella Linton. However, I also felt that Hodgson Burnett was quite convincing in her portrait of someone who has been emotionally and physically abused. Charting the gradual wasting of Rosy’s self-confidence and worth, to a state of near complete dilapidation both Rosy and her marital home, Stornham Court suffer at the hands our villian.

Sir Nigel picks Rosy out as a prey would its victim, sensing that her ‘innocent, sweet-tempered’ nature will bend to his resolution to assert his ‘superiority’. There is a grim inevitability as to how their relationship will develop. Rosy’s geographic isolation compounds her sense of insecurity whilst expanding the opportunities Sir Nigel has to exert his dominion over her.

If the main protagonists are caricatures, then Bettina epitomises her sister’s opposite. Hodgson Burnett bestows upon Bettina the studied self-assurance that she (and others, according to Anna Sebba’s introduction to The Shuttle) discerned in Bettina’s class and nationality. Any lack of a critical awareness concerning the ‘American way of life’ I felt was supposed to parallel the Vanderpoels’ (and supposedly their real life counterparts) own unflinching and unquestioning attitude towards commerce coupled with their unerring belief in their own abilities. Sir Nigel, presumably would have agreed with Basil Reginald St. Denis’s opinion that ‘…he disliked nothing more wholeheartedly then the untempered energy of pioneers’. (Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby)

Overall, I found it a fabulous melodrama, with a little touch of the Gothic here and there. ( )