Sometimes when I feel like visiting my childhood, I read a Nancy Drew or Dana Girls mystery. Two specific things have led me to do so. The first is a conversation I had with my mother. At the time I was in the I-know-everything stage of the late 20s or early 30s, and the conversation went like this:
MY MOTHER: What should I do with your old Nancy Drews and all those other mysteries?
ME: Oh, give them to the library.
Do you have any idea what Nancy Drew and Dana Girls mysteries sell for these days? Especially when the owner was a nerdy child who neurotically took care of all her books? Even more importantly, can you imagine the joy of still owning them? Words cannot describe—which leads to the second reason why I return occasionally to a Nancy Drew or Dana Girls book. I’ve told a few friends about the conversation with my mother, and they occasionally give me a Nancy Drew or Dana Girls books they found in used bookstores. That’s how I obtained both
The Secret of the Wooden Lady (TSOTWL), a Nancy Drew, and
The Clue in the Cobweb (TCITC), a Dana Girls’ adventure. Both were written by Carolyn Keene or whatever ripped-off author was writing under that name at that time. So, here goes:
General observations:
1) Compared to today, exclamation points in these books are plentiful, at times almost seeming to outnumber the words themselves. Okay, I exaggerate but, boy, were those characters easily excited!
2) I love the endings of all the chapters, each one a cliffhanger. In TSOTWL Nancy and Ned, her boyfriend, are on a ship that is heading into a hurricane. She asks if he thinks they'll be safe. "Ned did not answer. He did not want to admit he did not see how they could possibly ride out the storm." (TSOTWL, page 100) Now it's amusing; as a child I couldn't wait to start the next chapter.
3) The idea of a story being told by a single point-of-view character appears to be pretty modern. In the Nancy Drew mysteries Nancy is, of course, the point-of-view character, but it's not odd to find sentences like, "Quint twisted his hands nervously. There was no chance to escape from
three girls!" (
italics his) (TSOTWL, page 188) As amazing as Nancy Drew is, there's no way she could have known what was going on in Quint's mind! (Sorry about that! I feel an attack of exclamation points coming on.)
4) Reading books written before political correctness can be fun. "… the amusing mishaps of Coral Appel, a kind-hearted but slow-witted maid." (TCITC, page 13) "Slow-witted is so yesterday! Did you know that Moose in the
Archie comics is no longer slow-witted? These days he has ADD.
5) Today dialect is, for the most part, a big no-no. "'Something go wrong on trip,' the Chinaman told the girls. 'Missee Catherine velly angly since she come back.'" (TCITC, page 29) I also find it interesting that Word does not recognize Chinaman as one word. Is this another label that has gone the way of "colored," a term that shows up in TCITC. "The last time I was there she had a colored man cooking for the boys at the bunk-house." (page 94) I am sure these terms have vanished in the latest update of the two series, but what about the context of the sentences? "An African-American cooking for the boys" doesn't sound that much better. IMHO
6) I did have a
eureka moment while reading these books. As a child, I always liked the Dana Girls books better than the Nancy Drews. This time through I figured out why. With Nancy Drew you have the good guys, Nancy, her chums and boyfriend, Ned, which made good and evil completely obvious and always predictable. The Dana Girls attend a boarding school, and among the students is a Lettie Briggs, whose life's goal is to make life miserable for the Dana girls. She is also a "bad guy" and that gives two types of villains in the Dana series. There are the overall bad guys who were involved in a crime that you know the Dana girls will solve, but you also have a continuing conflict between Lettie and the Dana Girls. Strikes to me that structure is something I should keep in mind in my own writing.
Word:
1) Scud. "The clipper's been scudding around this world for a good many years." (TSOTWL, page 144) Actually I know what scud means, but it brought up a really strange memory. When I was attending Indiana University, I learned of a collection of plays called
America's Lost Plays. I was intrigued and had to have it. The next year it was Christmas present. I read several of the plays and quickly decided these plays should have remained lost. But I remember one called
Flying Scud. I had never seen the word before; I had no idea what it meant. I looked it up then, and the definition stayed with me. How surprised I was two days ago when reading TSOTWL and had to admit I'd come across the word years before Indiana. BTW, I still have
America's Lost Plays, and I still haven't read them all. Maybe I'll read a few more and review them. That'll give you something to look forward to!
