Yes exactly—the characters' views shouldn't be 100% modern but there's room to challenge them even inside the narrative in a way that the story really doesn't, I think! It's a shame, because there's a lot that is good in that part—Mary demanding Holmes take her along, her independent action, Holmes' gentleness with the mother, Jessie herself, etc, but a lot of it in that part just made me go >:/
1994, apparently! Which to be fair is...28 years ago, apparently??? Man it does not feel that long ago.
And yes!! There's this part too: My maths tutor was away, illness of some kind, and I was secretly grateful not to have that pressure. The woman who tutored Greek was also away, vanished into maternity over the Christmas holidays. And of course you have the Greek tutor's absence to camouflage the significance of the maths', but it's right there. I'd forgotten how much she'd mattered to Mary, too, though that too is foreshadowed—I think it's a very satisfying solution but more as it relates to Mary's character and the arc of the story than the mystery exactly; which, as you say, are the reasons one comes to the book in the first place.
Today I finished the first book and then read all of the second—which I think I must have read before after all; I'd forgotten so much of it but I recognized Mary's question about Holmes' fairies, at the end. Heh. Reading it did bring back some memory if my first time through, and I think I appreciated it more this time as well. And now I've started the third—hopefully I can actually write my thoughts about these up sometime soon!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2022-05-23 01:32 am (UTC)1994, apparently! Which to be fair is...28 years ago, apparently??? Man it does not feel that long ago.
And yes!! There's this part too:
My maths tutor was away, illness of some kind, and I was secretly grateful not to have that pressure. The woman who tutored Greek was also away, vanished into maternity over the Christmas holidays.
And of course you have the Greek tutor's absence to camouflage the significance of the maths', but it's right there. I'd forgotten how much she'd mattered to Mary, too, though that too is foreshadowed—I think it's a very satisfying solution but more as it relates to Mary's character and the arc of the story than the mystery exactly; which, as you say, are the reasons one comes to the book in the first place.
Today I finished the first book and then read all of the second—which I think I must have read before after all; I'd forgotten so much of it but I recognized Mary's question about Holmes' fairies, at the end. Heh. Reading it did bring back some memory if my first time through, and I think I appreciated it more this time as well. And now I've started the third—hopefully I can actually write my thoughts about these up sometime soon!