The Children of The New Forest by Frederick Marryat - 8 out of 10

 

The Children of The New Forest by Frederick Marryat

 

8 out of 10

 

This is embarrassing, but I have seen that this is a children’s book only now, after I have (sort of) finished it, having said that, it is not as if this was cherished, set aside as one of the masterpieces that I need to read again, no, I did not think much of it, indeed, I just sailed through quite a few chapters, without much interest

 

The Children of The New Forest was published in 1847, hence this is available at https://librivox.org/ where you can listen to the audiobook, which I did, until it got out of the interesting, captivating zone, to give you an idea, Dune has about one and a half million ratings, and an astounding number or reviews on Goodreads…

Mine is to be posted in the next couple of days, at the same time, very few readers took the trouble with The Children of The New Forest – only a few hundred ratings – notwithstanding the fact that this is included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, the reason why I bothered with it in the first place

 

Nevertheless, after almost dismissing this as irrelevant, let me say that the work is not without merits – we have enough adventure and valiant protagonists, fighting for the monarch, this is 1647, when King Charles I is defeated, and the parliamentarian army is chasing after him, as we meet the main characters of the narrative

Colonel Beverly has a house near the New Forest and he is an important supporter of his majesty, when the royalty are chased away, the colonel becomes a target, he dies in battle, and his property is under siege, and the scoundrels burn it down, this is very much about good versus evil, there are few shades of grey here

 

As a general assessment, you would have the king as a more complex figure, his supporters much like the privileged fat cats of today, or worse, for there were fewer rules, and if today fat bastards like Orange Jesus can get away with murder, still, in the Middle Ages they could do even worse, how much worse is another question

However, the king and his fans are the valiant, courageous, virtuous, brave, and the list is long, while their opponents are malevolent, vicious, cruel, and that is evident from the very beginning, as they set fire to the Beverly house (or was it a mansion, I could not remember) and in the fire, the children are supposed to have died

 

Fortunately, they are saved by Jacob Armitage, the verderer, a man who is still devoted to the colonel, who takes them to his abode, in the middle of the New Forest, thus the name of the book, Children of The New Forest, and then the children pretend they are the grandchildren of Jacob Armitage, to avoid persecution or worse

 

Edward, Humphrey, Alice and Edith will learn to survive, Edward is the eldest, the would-be inheritor of the property and goods of his father, under the monarch, but as it is, they have to be very careful, they rarely travel outside, they are forced to trade though, they will sell their wares, the meat, so that they can get what they need

They hunt, raise animals, they will even get some cattle, by trapping first the animals, killing the cow, then taming the calf, with the help of an expert, Pablo, the gypsy – this is boy that was caught in one of the traps, he was travelling with his relatives and the group, but now there is no way he could join them again

 

Edward and Humphrey have found Pablo, they are a bit suspicious, but kind, brave, determined, noble and well, perfect as they are, they take the boy in, offer him the chance to grow up, hep his new family – if we use a contemporary standard, they would be labeled a bit racist, discriminatory and a few other things…

Nonetheless, we have a few centuries between us and those ‘angles’, so in the context of their age, they were actually too good to be true, but hey, belatedly, but I did find that this is for children, so they need role models, characters to admire and feel awe for…actually we need that too, and let me mention Positivity

 

This is a classic of psychology https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/05/positivity-by-barbara-fredrickson-life.html by Barbara Fredrickson which offers you the ingredients – awe, interest, amusement, inspiration, pride, serenity, hope, joy, gratitude and especially love, elements that we see in other fundamental works

   ‘Happiness Activity No 12: Taking care of Your Body- engaging in physical activity, meditating and smiling and laughing’ this is from The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-how-of-happiness-by-sonja.html and I am trying to apply it, we all should

 

For instance, even if I will be sixty-one in February, this Sunday, I will run in the Arenas Cross, in the ten kilometers race, my first such public endeavor, and speaking of gratitude, this is because I have a wonderful trainer, started tell me what to do some six months ago, or maybe four, and then pushed up to this point

It is time to mention one of those silly proverbs ‘do not brag before you jump’, meant to insist that I have to wait to see if I finish on Sunday, find the bravery to see it through, where will I be at the end, maybe the one before last

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”