Harding's Luck

Rating:
Summary: Hard Luck - No Stars
Review: As an enormous E Nesbit fan and an avid collector of her books I can barely describe the glee with which I embarked upon Harding's Luck. Not only a new Nesbit book, but a sequel to The House of Arden - one of my top three Nesbit picks. Alas for me this book was a sad disappointment. It was bad enough that Edred's growing up in Arden eclipsed the truly magnificent Elfrida, but in Harding's Luck cousin Richard cheats them both out of any accomplishment. This would be bad enough, but Dickie our hero is cast in the 'little lame beggar boy with the heart of gold' mold. After dozens of books with keen and natural renderings of children, this sugar spun Pollyanna crossed with Tiny Tim is flat and forced. As a bit of pure conjecture I will throw the blame on the social agenda of the plot thus demonstrating that very rarely does good art come from politics over observation. All that being said, it is Nesbit and it is the conclusion to the Arden story so I suppose it must be read. However for a book to wash down this one's bitter taste I suggest The Enchanted Castle, Five Children and It, or The Treasure Seekers.

Rating:
Summary: an elderly englishman's view
Review: I'm buying 'Harding's Luck' for one of my 6 grandaughters - a very bright girl in Australia coming up for eleven years old, about the age I read it myself, with huge enjoyment. Her mother tells me that her daughter spurns the modern children's novels she gives her on the grounds that they're "too real" - unlike the books sent by grandfather - as e.g 'Wind on the Moon" by Eric Linklater most recently (highly recommended for 10 year-olds, if you can find it!).
'Harding's Luck' does wear its heart on its sleeve but no more than any of the great 19th century novelists of France, Russia or Britain - or indeed the USA, - and what's wrong with a novel with a message anyway? In fact it's no more 'naive', as one of your reviewers characterises it, than "The Railway Children" made twice into films. It's a lot less preachy and sentimental than say, Little Lord Fauntleroy, whose rags-to-earldom plot line, with adult redemption thrown in, is not so far removed. But in the hands of Nesbit who unlike F. Hodgson Burnett is a 'real' writer, traditional material is transmuted through imagination into something rich and strange and original.
Stylistically too, it is right up to Nesbit's best form - try reading it aloud.
Finally Harding's Luck has all the elements that will capture a child's sympathy and imagination : injustice, poverty, deformity, magic, romance, suspense, sacrifice, and triumph over adversity. And with twist - the happy ending is not quite happy.

Piers Croke
London




Rating:
Summary: I love this book too.
Review: It's not like the same old fairy tale but more than that. I read it a long time ago when I was a student reading from library, just waiting for paperback so more suit to my pocket.

Rating:
Summary: Dickens would be proud
Review: Many of Edith Nesbit's books are not so much novels as they are sequences of shorter stories (perhaps they were published, or meant to be read, serially?) Harding's Luck and its companion, The House of Arden, have far more complex and interwoven plots. The events in the lighter House of Arden form only a part Harding's Luck, as Dickie is a much fuller character than Edred and Elfrida. They must have been plotted together, as each contains references to the other.

As in The Psammead and the Carpet, there are numerous instances of Nesbit's socialist views (not in the modern sense of big government, more along the lines of GK Chesterton's definition "A socialist is a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney sweeps paid for it."). Children will never notice these; adults may find them sweet but sadly naive.

In their richness of plot and character, and in the sense of something deeper and truer lurking behind the superficial magic, these two are probably the crown of Nesbit's work. Givn the fact that the paperback copy of Harding's Luck costs $10, it's worthwhile to shell out another $7 for the hardback, so you'll have it longer.

Rating:
Summary: Dickens would be proud
Review: Many of Edith Nesbit's books are not so much novels as they are sequences of shorter stories (perhaps they were published, or meant to be read, serially?) Harding's Luck and its companion, The House of Arden, have far more complex and interwoven plots. The events in the lighter House of Arden form only a part Harding's Luck, as Dickie is a much fuller character than Edred and Elfrida. They must have been plotted together, as each contains references to the other.

As in The Psammead and the Carpet, there are numerous instances of Nesbit's socialist views (not in the modern sense of big government, more along the lines of GK Chesterton's definition "A socialist is a man who wants all the chimneys swept and all the chimney sweeps paid for it."). Children will never notice these; adults may find them sweet but sadly naive.

In their richness of plot and character, and in the sense of something deeper and truer lurking behind the superficial magic, these two are probably the crown of Nesbit's work. Givn the fact that the paperback copy of Harding's Luck costs $10, it's worthwhile to shell out another $7 for the hardback, so you'll have it longer.