I read the first two pages of Grace's Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School, a book that I mentioned in a recent post. The book immediately pulled me in, so I know that I need to buy more of them. The Grace Harlowe books will be tough to find in dust jackets.
Whenever I find another series that I think I want to collect, I go to the Girls' Series Group on Yahoo! Groups to see what old discussions I can find. The group is very inactive nowadays, but it used to have excellent discussions. I ran a search for "Grace Harlowe" and began to read the comments.
I found an excellent message about Grace Harlowe and the overall appeal of series books in general. This is a direct link to the message, but you have to be a member of the group in order to read it. The message was posted on June 3, 1999, but I do recall reading it back then. The message made quite an impact on me.
The writer explained that Grace Harlowe and Marjorie Dean are "not very good books in a literary sense. However, just to judge from the comments on this list, the books remain compelling. There's no necessary link between literary excellence and storytelling ability . . . But often, the very lack of literary substance allows characters to achieve a sort of mythic resonance."
This person then stated how the vague descriptions of Nancy Drew have given Nancy Drew a mythical quality that has transcended the decades. So often, the absence of literary descriptions is what draws us into series books. As we read the series books, we become the characters and live through them. It is a great way to escape from the troubles of life and feel like a carefree child again.
For anyone who is relatively new to collecting series books, there is nothing wrong with reading such simple fiction. We all know that series books are not great literature, but the books are examples of storytelling at its best. The writers of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and all of our other old favorites knew how to tell a good story. They were masters of their craft, and their tales have lasted well past their own lifetimes.
3 comments:
I LOVE the Grace Harlowe books (and, to a lesser extent, Marjorie Dean). They really aren't very compelling and the formulas are very quickly obvious and repeated frequently, but there's something fascinating about them to me. I think part of it is the idea that they are "every girl," or at least, her ideal. It's a unique window into what the powers that be wanted their young girls to aspire to.
My favorite part of the Grace Harlowe series is when she goes "Overseas;" the character traits the publishers seem to be pushing become a bit less human and more fantasy, or maybe just seem more out of place on "the front". I've only read one of that series (I've found them very hard to find, even as ebooks), so I'd be interested in hearing more from you. And I'd be fascinated to see if you find any of them in dustjackets!
I really enjoy the Grace Harlowe books (and the entire High School and College Girls series are available at Project Gutenberg, if you want to read ones you can't find copies of), but for me, what makes them interesting is that they frequently break the mold of the formula. As I said in a post on my blog, they're always a little bit more interesting and sophisticated than I remember them being.
Yeah - I think that's why I prefer Grace Harlowe to Marjorie Dean. I've only read the MD HS series, but they don't have the same variation to me. Grace at least always moves on to a new "project" girl; MD is stuck all through school fighting very similar battles.
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