NO SPOILERS!!!On completions:This is primarily a crime/mystery novel. Usually when I read fictional crime novels I cannot but loose interest b/c I KNOW this is all just one big story; there is no reality to it. Well, not with this book. I found it thoroughly entertaining. A light, fun read. As I pointed out below, there are some sections, whcich I found a bit tedious. I did not enjoy reading the observations recorded by Bessy's mistress. They were in italics and too longwinded and boring! Thankfully this section was brief. The novel is light because the message is about friendship and courage and right wining over wrong. Even the scoundrels are not to be taken too seriously. And you get a glimpse of life in the latter half of the 1800s in rural Scotland. Life was no cup of tea, but the harsh circumstances of the poor and destitute still do not make this a sad, gloomy story. People do die in thsi story, bad things do happen, but the tone is not depressing at all. And remember there is a mystery to be solved! So if you are looking for a light, fun mystery, read this. Yes, I certainly liked it, so it gets three stars. If you want to test the author's prose, please see below. ******************************************After 117 of 538 pages: Note that I am looking at how many pages are left. That is not a good sign. At the moment it is being made clear what the mistress of the "castle" is up to. However she lacks the charm of Bessy, In fact, she drives me crazy. Her reasoning is ridulous. She too is writing in a book, noting her own observations. She clearly can express herself properly, spell and punctuate. But what she has to say is boring to the extreme. Her observations are presented in italics which is a pain to read. Yes, we the readers need to know what she is doing but the presentation is too long. Look at how she expresses herself:When asked later why she did not co-operate fully with the experiment, Bessy stated that she did not understand the 'porpoise' of what she was being asked to do. Of course a truly obedient mind would not question purpose but carry out instructions as commanded, without stopping to analyze why or how. This and certain other of the subject's peculiarities add weight to my suspicion that she is not innately obedient.I can take brief writing of this nature, but not page after page in italics! I like Bessy. I do not like Arabella. I must point out the bad along with the good qualities of a book. I personally do not like reading books lacking in punctuation. Bessy learns so quickly that you do not have to struggle with that in this book. It is Arabella, although speaking perfectly correctly, who is so darn annoying and boring. Is the author playing with me for a purpose? I will continue the book to find out........ I hope the book returns again to the sparkilingn humorous prose that exemplfied the beginning. ************************************After 58 pages: I am still enjoying myself! I still do not know what is going on, but I am thinking and laughing as I read. When I write this review I hope to show those who read my review what they might experience if they choose to read this book. I give examples so that they can judge if what makes me laugh will make them laugh. Because we are all different. So what I am wondering about is why, why, why Bessy has to write daily entries of what she has done. Why was she hired on this sole purpose. Sure, she does help around the estate, but that is not why she was employed. Now look at the title. Even the title points out that it is her observations that are the clue to the central theme of this novel. Bessy's first entry was only a few words long. Yes, she can read and write; she know words, but stringing them along into sentences, now that is difficult. The missus really did want more than 10 words a day, so she asked Bessy to try and sit down for another hour and come up with something better. Here is the result: thursday got up late porridge for breakfast burnt roof of mouth on it collected eggs emptied poe for missus head broth for dinner went for scones served tea to missus and reverend other than that nothing strange or startling(page 52)So how did the missus react to this?'Well,' says the missus when she looked at it. 'That is better. But still it wants further elaboration and detail. So I says in jest: Oh should I have elaborated what was in the pisspot, marm? (And then I could have kicked myself, for dear sake it was not the kind of pleasantry fit for a lady.) The missus just gives me a look and says no, but this account doesn't speak to me. I tell her that I was truly sorry but I didn't know what else to write about. And she sighed and tell me that the next day it would please her greatly if when I wrote in the little book I wasn't just to write what I did, the chores and all, I was to write down how I felt about what I did and what thoughts went through my head as I did it. Jesus Murphy I thought to myself what possible interest could that be to any possible man jack and I may have said as much except not in those exact words and then the missus says if you do it I will give you another shilling so I thought well gob if it made her happy. But I am being too pert. To tell the truth I did not care a ducks beak for the extra shilling. I just wanted to please my missus. (page 52-53)Although these words still leave you and I in the dark as to the motives for the mistress' demands, I have learned about Bessy. What I have learned has made me like her. Maybe she is a bit a liar, but she is kind and seeks to "please her missus"! Then Bessy's next entry, on Friday, made me laugh. But for you to laugh you must read the book yourself! What follows next, in chapter four, entitled "What I did not write" is even funnier and perceptive too! Do you know what I am guessing? I am guessing that Bessy, by the end of the novel will have learned and will be able to express her thoughts and emotions fluently. At this point I simply want to follow Bessy and learn more about her. There are other mysteries to be solved conerning her mistress, Arabella Reid. I have told you just a snippet. One more excerpt , that made me laugh. Let me explain. Bessy is worried that Arabella will request a character summary from her previous employment. Now that might not be so advantageous to Bessy, so she must keep an eye out for the postman. Here, listen to her thoughts on the postman:This particular postman must have been the human equivalent of a badger for you never saw hide nor hair of him, only found his droppings on the mat, and this day was no exception. (page 57)Now I will return only when I have formed my final opinion on the book! Unless I go crazy and have to tell you something!**************************************After 20 pages: I am simply reding this because the main character is so fun. She has spunk! She is a big liar, but what is a girl to do if she has only herself to count on. Bessy is Irish, but is in Scotland. Her last boss died on her, so now she is making her way from Glasgow to Edinburg, when she passes a Castle. She is one of the lower classes, but she can read and write. She said she could milk a cow, but that, that was a lie. She helps the mistress of the castle catch a pig, was rewarded with some bread, stole a bit for later and then her cover was blown when she got not a drop of milk from the cow. But there is something strange going on in this mansion. Bessy is hired to be the in and out girl. Why? Well because she can read and write. Among all the other numerous chores the only one that really counts is that she records what she does every day in a book. She is given the book and the ink and pens, but why is just such a book smoldering in the fire, and why do the ashes on the kitchen floor spell a vulgar word? I do not know any more than you, but this is fun! Here you can see why it is fun! It is all in the author's ability to draw Bessy by her choice of words:She took me into the kitchen then and without making any comment about the smell of burning or the mess, she kicked some of the oats about the place so you could no longer read the word they spelt. Then she sat me at the table to explain the full extent of my duties. Well, if you had wrote it down, the list would have been as long as your arm but it all seemed straight forward enough, there was nothing strange or startling in what she said. Most of the livestock was kept over on the farm and was looked after by farm servants but...... Every day light all the fires and clean the range and keep it lit. Clean the boots, empty the thunder mugs for her and the master. In addition, if they were short-handed, I might have to cart manure and pick stones out a field, then I might have to help put these same stones in holes in another field which, she said, was to make a drain......The one thing she did not mention, was the milking. I asked her about that. "Oh," she says. "Don't worry about that for now. Jessie and Muriel will see to the cows. You would only have to help them out in case of an emergency." That tickled me. Now what would be emergency, I wondered. I got a picture in my head of everyone running around in a panic falling over each other to get the cows milked. Wash the pots Bessy! Make a drain! I can't missus I have to milk the cows it's an emergency! (page 15)So you have humor, Scottish and Irish traditions and a mystery! What IS going on?! And how ill Bessy change? And what is this mistress up to?
Review from BadelyngeThe heroine, and faithful scribe, of this tale is one Bessy Buckley, or so she introduces herself. She's a young Irish girl, running away from a mother who has ruthlessly exploited her from an early age. She arrives at a ramshackle mansion, somewhere near Edinburgh, where she is taken on as a housemaid by the mistress of the house, Arabella Reid. The 'missus' as she calls her soon has young Bessy confused and bewildered by a succession of seemingly random and mostly pointless requests. And every night she must write an account of the day's events along with her inner thoughts. Despite all this Bessy develops a fierce loyalty for her mistress and then she finds out, by the chance discovery of Arabella's in-progress book 'The Observations', what the object of her devotions is really up to and tellingly what her opinions of Bessy are. What happens next is best left for the story to tell, but it is a fascinating read that weaves Bessy's dark past, the mysterious fate of her predecessor, Arabella's paragon of all house maids, Nora, and Arabella's own secrets into a startlingly engaging narrative mystery. Bessy is a wonderful character, who colours her tale with the most vivid and sometimes lurid slang and colloquialisms. I'm often put off by such inclusions, though in this case they are pretty much essential to the style and don't distract at all. Though being a native of northern England, where many of the expressions are still in common use or fondly remembered from use by my Grandparents, I could be more immune from irritation than the average reader. Bessy is also not averse to casting ridicule on the people she recounts by exaggerating or over annotating their speech patterns and accents. The more she despises them the more extreme the exaggeration. I think it's no accident that Hector, the sex obsessed Highlander, gets the brunt of it. The Observations is an excellent début novel. I've read the latest book by Jane Harris, 'Gillespie and I', which appeared some 5 years after 'The Observations' - so if you enjoyed this book I'd recommend you look it up with all due dispatch.
Do You like book The Observations (2006)?
After reading Sarah Waters’ “The Night Watch”, the “Customers who bought this, also bought…” feature on Amazon recommended this.The Synopsis intrigued me (I love me a good mystery/ghost story), so I decided I'd give it a try…I waited for what seemed like ages for the book to make its way to one of my local bookstores and -failing that- I eventually went ahead and ordered it on-line. Maybe it was all the wait, or the brilliant 4 and 5 star reviews it got from other readers but I, somehow, expected more…It took me forever to get into this -despite the funny and original narrative- and, once I did (after about the 1st half of the story had painstakingly gone by), it was only to be let down by a largely anti-climactic (in my humble opinion) finale.Maybe it's just me but a book shouldn't require such an effort to enthrall you in the first place, only to come to such an abrupt and minimalistic end :(That said, “The Observations” wasn't an all around bad effort. The writing style was indeed refreshing and the book managed to provide both some precious laugh-out-loud moments and some food for thought. If only the conclusion of the story had been a bit more complicated and developed, it would have made a great read.
—TianaK
"I was born Irish. But I'm more of the Scottish persuasion now." Bessy Buckley narrates with a direct, honest and often bawdily descriptive slang. She used to be something other than a maid as well. Quick on her feet and not one to give herself away unless absolutely necessary, she is starved for love and attention.She meets Mrs. Arabella Reid, who is a bit of an intellectual and is at work on an interesting project. When the "Missus" learns that Bessy can read and write she decides to hire her as the 'in and out' girl at her estate, Castle Haivers. Bessy is eager to please her new mistress even when her requests are rather unusual. Mrs. Reid gives Bessy a journal and asks her to record her daily activities. When Bessy's discovers Arabella's true feelings for her she decides to play an elaborate joke on her mistress. The joke has unfortunate and unforeseeable consequences.The story has a rich and evolving quality to it, Bessy's narration changes and matures as she does. She describes the countryside of "Scratchland" and the propriety of the Victorian era with an eye for detail. I enjoyed listening to her story and was sorry when it ended. Jane Harris has been compared to Sarah Waters and I have to say there is certainly a similar flavor about their work. I will be looking for Jane Harris' next novel.
—Barb
I really liked this book at the start. It's written from the point of view of an Irish maid who goes to work in a (you probably guessed it) old, cold, lonely house. Initially her speech is really funny, with a wealth of very colorful expressions. Without giving anything away, the story is a bit of a mystery, but I'd more call it a thriller. I found the plot a bit predictable, and in the end I thought it a bit over the top. Definitely of the 'drama-hysterics-and-ghosts' genre of the Victorian novel. It reminds me a lot of another novel I read about a year ago, "Fingersmith," so if you read that and enjoyed it, you might give "The Observations" a try.It was entertaining, and fairly long so it kept me busy through several plane flights.
—Ellen B.
