Lady Claire, society daughter is approaching the end of
her school career where all the important things a young lady needs to know
have been passed on to her. Despite this, she’s also made the effort to
actually learn something, much to the frustration of her teachers and certainly
to the annoyance of her mother who is viewing the coming season with great
anticipation. Education takes a back seat to dress fitting if Claire wishes to
achieve the ultimate goal and secure herself a proper husband. Rather than Claire
achieving her ultimate goal and go to university.
Of course, such ambitions become far more distant when
disaster strikes the family. Impoverished and without her father, Claire sees
her mother leave the city and is left to pack things up and join them – and rejoin
the quest to find a proper husband.
Independent, with little supervision, Claire pursues her
own goal of employment hoping to realise her own potential. But she quickly
finds herself in a far worse position than she ever imagined possible – and must
now make her way on the poorest streets of London, penniless as the Lady of
Devices
Lady Claire is a Victorian society lady, the daughter of
a Marquis of considerable wealth and influence. Thuis is a common setting for
Steampunk and my first test is always “does this feel right?” I want to be able
to open the book and feel the Victoriana, when a new character is introduced,
the theem should be so set thaI picture her in a gown, not jeans and a tank
top. I want the feel of the time and the place to be so evocative that there’s
no doubt to the setting and no need to translate. And I want all that without
massive amounts of clumsy info dumping.
This is one of those books that gets it right. Through dialogue, through actions, through carefully described settings, through attitudes and appropriate, non-overdone references we have a great sense of time and place that’s really immersive and fun.
And Claire is a fascinating character – someone who
causes explosions in her “chemistry of the kitchen” class simply because the
Professor won’t tell her WHY those compounds should not be mixed, she’s not
satisfied with “just don’t.” Claire faces two major conflicts, the first – and one
I hope will be developed in later books – is the conflict of Wits vs Bloods.
The Wits being those who consider intelligence and knowledge to be important
and the Bloods who consider breeding and lineage to be what matters. She is
from a Blooded family, a family that wouldn’t dream of employment or
involvement in such crass activities as science and engineering. Instead finance
and politics are for the men, and finding a good husband and running a
household are the women’s job.
Claire breaks both moulds – more inclined to value
learning, adventure, experience and knowledge than bloodline and breeding and
chafing against extreme gender expectations that require her to be decorous
enough to find a husband – the all consuming goal that so obsesses her mother.
Any other achievements are moot, her language skills are to be useful for
ordering around foreign staff, her engineering and scientific knowledge trifling
distractions at best.
After her family’s financial collapse, Lady Claire finds
herself on the streets of London among the very poorest in Victorian society. While
there, we quickly see the blatant difference between the “haves” and the “have
nots” and just how little people have to survive on when she lived a life of
such extreme privilege. The come down is extreme, to say the least.
And, with her new companions, we can also see how many advantages Lady Claire has – not just in terms of assets but in terms of upbringing. Merely speaking a certain way, dressing a certain way means she is much better treated and, because of that, given greater opportunities and greater lee-way. The same applies to education, here knowledge not just her precocious and unusual knowledge of chemistry and engineering (which, despite the title of the book, is a relatively minor element of the story) but simply being able to read and write and to have mastered basic maths makes such a difference. It’s a telling examination of class not just in terms of who has what or even in terms of how well people are treated – but also in terms of the basic advantages that education and upbringing can bring.
But it’s also a little simplistic, to say the least,
sunnily optimistic. This is a feel good story and that is what we get. Acting
as Professor Henry Higgins with a gang of Eliza Doolittles, she quickly
educates and informs her gang, introducing them to gambling which they’re
wildly successful at in the various establishments, bringing in an income on
which she builds her enterprise – bringing gangs together, bringing in the
homeless urchins, bringing them education, food and a place to stay.
Because it was so successful and easy she never
adequately challenges her initial disapproval of their resorting to stealing to
eat. Right until the end of the book she is ashamed that she ate a slice of
bread that is stolen without ever truly acknowledging, realising or accepting
that the gang of children she had fallen in with had no choice but to steal or
starve. She never really loses or even tempers her judgement of their thievery.
Nor, for that matter, does she adjust her opinion of their clothing, behaviour
or language and, rather than accepting these children as who they are from
their circumstances, sets out to Henry Higgins them from the very first
meeting. She doesn’t get challenged or grow as a character and her views aren’t
substantially changed because her eyes aren’t opened, she doesn’t face a great
deal of earth-shattering conflict and things smoothly – and almost magically –
resolve themselves in a satisfactory manner.
It’s fluffy, it’s fun, it’s nice, it’s sweet and I really
enjoyed it – but it was too easy and contained too little conflict. After she’s
established in the building after, luckily, defeating a thief on the second
night of homelessness the worst thing that happens to Lady Claire is meeting
some old high society associates in the Crystal Palace who try to embarrass her.
There’s not a lot more conflict. She brings gangs together with relative ease.
She establishes near complete authority over all her charges with nary a blink
or more than a couple of hesitations. It’s just so easy – this path from utter
poverty to (relative) prosperity is so very very smooth. Given the short
lengthy of the book, more could have been added here, I think.
On the subject of length, the ending also felt rather
abrupt. She was putting things together then suddenly weeks pass and she’s now
got a thriving enterprise, going to the Crystal Palace, meeting old friends and
setting off into a whole new chapter of her life. It caught me by surprise, we
were happily chopping along at an excellent pace for most of the book,
everything explained and fleshed out, themes maintained without becoming boring
then suddenly we make this massive sprint for the finish line. I found myself
wondering whether the author on a deadline.
I think the short length may also have prevented a fuller
discussion of class, gender roles and the Wits vs Bloods conflict which were
all touched on, but not in the depth the book suggested. There were also no
minorities at all.
Ultimately, this is a book that makes you go “awwwww” and
maybe smile in a slightly sappy way and then look around, faintly embarrassed
in case anyone saw you. It’s sweet, it’s fun, it’s rather twee and it’s,
perhaps, not very realistic or even likely, but it’s nice and it’s fluffy and
sometimes we need a little feel-good twee.
