Where the Plot is Small Town England

Perlycross: A novel by R.D. Blackmore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Less famous than the author's big hit, Lorna Doone, Perlycross is well worth reading and almost as good as the other. Where Lorna Doone offered a good share of action to go with its 19th Century style romance, Perlycross gives us more of the novel-of-manners vibe, or coming closer to a George Eliot examination of small town characters.

I liked it--almost gave it a 5 instead of 4--but honesty requires I say it was a *touch* less entertaining than I wanted. Good not great. (I missed the action, tbh.)

There is a central plot running throughout, where the remains of the local lord disappear the day after his interment and all the signs point at the nearest doctor. Though he is not charged, he remains under suspicion, and the ramifications are many, especially regarding his romance with the daughter of the deceased. Her mother, a proud Spanish woman, will not believe his innocence, dooming their hopes to marry.

The main charm of the novel is its cast of characters: the one-armed schoolteacher famed for his strict discipline; the retired doctor who loves fishing more than anything and catches nothing; the giant wrestler who gets caught up in the supposed body-snatching; his crazy mother who recounts how many of her children ended up on the gallows; the wrestler's sweet daughter who gets a second chance in another home; the young doctor's headstrong sister; and, above all, the clergyman in Perlycross who wants, more than anything, to finish a restoration and improvement of the church but continues to face losses and setbacks. Truly, he is the central character, the main POV character, participating in all the events of church and town where he observes everything and counsels everyone.

It's not an overly saccharine view of the world we get here--there is plenty of evil and unkindness and prejudice and hard feelings--but there seems to be a balance found in the book's pages. There's a feeling that this is about the best we can hope to do in the world; this is society at its most congenial, with folk of goodwill trying constantly to shore it up. Despite the cynical voices and chauvinism and poverty and even crime, the people get on pretty well, thank you. Nothing's perfected in Perlycross, and people are about as ignorant as you'd find anywhere, but there's a rhythm to life, a kind of settled pattern that works well enough and affords most people a decent chance at happiness. It's not idealized or sanitized, but it still has genuine attractions.

Ironically, the theme seems to be that all those norms and settled patterns are changing, and since it was set about 60 years earlier than it was written (published 1894) and is clearly modeled on the author's upbringing and hometown, I'm sure some of the glow I sensed is nostalgia for a better time. And I'm fine with that.

Hard to say why some novels become popular and get adapted to film or TV while others, perhaps just as deserving and entertaining, fade into obscurity. Maybe it's luck. Timing. I dunno. But this novel is hard to find in hardcover and has never, as far as I can find, been adapted, but I'd happily watch a movie or tv series made from it.

Recommended for readers of Eliot or Scott.

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