A Fan's Playground

I reread this book because I recently discovered that Essie and I, based on the different art in our respective childhood editions of this book, had entirely different opinions on what race Becky is. Essie's book pictured Becky as black, and mine pictured Becky as white. So of course I needed to reread to discover whether the text itself gives any indication.

What I discovered is that the book doesn't say anything totally conclusive, but a couple of clues make me think that the author intended her as white.

First: the only time her skin colour is mentioned is a description of her face being red from the effort of not crying. People of many races can get reddened skin, but the effect is more pronounced on paler skin.

Second, and I think this is more telling, when Becky is rhapsodizing about the unknown "Indian gentleman" moving in next door there is a list of three things she hopes about him; two of them are obviously exoticizing (hoping he's a heathen and wears a turban) and the third is that she hopes he is black. To me this says that she sees dark skin as exotic as well, which I think she wouldn't be so likely to do if she herself were dark-skinned.

Finally, the author is clearly of her era when it comes to a lot of her perspectives (eg HELLO ORIENTALISM) and so I really don't think she would have failed to mention Becky's race and probably include some unfortunate stereotypes if she intended her to be anything but white.

But of course death of the author and all that, and I think it would be valid to choose to read Becky as whatever race you choose, despite the all the above, since none of it is 100% conclusive.

Anyways, the book is in general extremely charming and I love it a lot, when I'm not busy being frustrated with its classism and racism and other such things.

I accidentally reread this book within like half a year of last reading because I was suddenly in the mood for it. What makes me "in the mood" for a particular book at a particular time is always so mysterious to me!

But what I actually want to talk about is that I'm still obsessed with trying to figure out the details of ( spoilers from here on in )

wow I am SUPER behind on posts about books I've read! I have SIX books in my to-post-about queue and I haven't even drafted my thoughts for any of them!

SO LET'S BEGIN WITH A COUPLE OF FRANCES HODGSON BURNETTS.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, by Frances Hodgson Burnett! Aka one of the more famous books by said author, except mostly famous these days for being horrifically twee and not the sort of person anybody of sense would actually ENJOY reading.

Apparently I am not a person of sense!

( no really this book is super charming, LET ME TELL YOU MORE )

NEXT: A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, also well-known, but this time for being ACTUALLY GOOD. And YEP IT IS.

( I don't know if anything under here even counts as spoilers but I'll cut anyways. )