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more book stuff: "Drusilla with a Million"
July 10, 2011
Drusilla with a Million, by Elizabeth Cooper
1916
Available free on line from Google Books and Project Gutenberg.
I give it ☆ ☆ ☆ (out of five)
Impoverished little old lady inherits estate and fortune from relative she never met. She then proceeds to set everyone on their ear with her unconventional notions of charity and usefulness.
You can really fall in love with little old Drusilla, twinkly-eyed and stubborn, with a kind and generous heart, a meddling glint in her eye, and the money to back it all up (fyi--Drusilla's 1916 million translates to nearly twenty-one million in today's money). She is a sensible, plain-talking, plain-thinking soul, and tackles the dilemma of how to spend her unexpected fortune in ways one can heartily approve. She may sometimes act like a timid little thing, but when it comes down to it, Drusilla is pretty fearless. She isnt't a saintly character, so she doesn't always get everything right--which ends up making her all the more lovable.
And speaking of not being a saint--
A warning to those sensitive to racism-- this book DOES contain those glaringly racist passages we all have to endure occasionally, if we read fiction from this period:
"...I've got Swedes and Dutch and Irish and Jews, and now a n***er baby.
It's a mighty good thing for me that the heathen Chinee is barred."
This, from a character that is the very soul and essence of goodness, kindness, and generosity! How times do change.
And if you are bugged by antifeminist sentiments, this may be a book you wish to avoid, as well. This is another double-standard that's rampant in books from this period, and I wish I had a nickel for every book I've read from this time that featured a strong female character who did pretty much what she wanted and shattered gender roles right and left...but, as the text never fails to make perfectly clear--she ISN'T a "SUFFRAGETTE". (votes fer wimmin're BAD, mmmmkay?) In "Drusilla", the main character has very definite opinions about the "New Woman".
I said I didn't believe too much in the over-education of females. That I'd rather be looked down to in lovin' tenderness than up to in silent awe, and that men can't love and wonder at the same time. I don't think men want to set women so high up that they're all the time wonderin' how she got there an' if they dare to bring her down to their level. I said that it seemed to me that love exchanged for learnin' was a mighty poor bargain for the woman if she wanted happiness; and one of the women that set at the table--the kind of woman that can't hold a baby without its clothes comin' apart--said I represented the old school. That things was changed now; that marriage was not the ultimate objective--es, that's what she said, the ultimate objective of women. I asked her what was the ultimate objective, and she said, 'the cultivation of her own individuality, the freeing of her soul.' I asked, couldn't she do it just as well with a man? and she said, no, that man impeded woman's progress. I said that I guessed that most women who said that hadn't
never had no chance to git close enough to a man to have him git in her way. I said I'd seen lots of women who said they hated men, but they generally hadn't had a chance to find out whether they could love 'em.
The reason to stick with the book despite the stuff I just mentioned? Simple.
Actions speak louder than words. She had just decided to take the foundling "n***er baby" in and give it at least a temporary home, rather than turn it over to the police. Despite being told by everyone she knew that she "couldn't" do it.
And while Drusilla spends a bit of time talking as quoted above, she spends a great dal more time acting to the contrary. AND managing to be feminine and maintain a loving relationship, while she's doing it. A loving relationship with and old flame who lives in her house, and whom she refuses to marry! I mean, granted--they are in their seventies, and at a time when that was a truly ripe old age. But just a bit scandalous, nonetheless!
In fact--Drusilla was so consistent in her inconsistency, I began to think of the dichotomy as a pointed, running joke after a while. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, filtering it through a 21st-Century mindset. But it began to seem like the author--and the character--were paying lip service to the prevailing social mores of the day, and all the while showing a better way of behaving through the actions that were portrayed in the book. I ended up enjoying "Drusilla With a Million" tremendously, and, bearing in mind the above-mentioned warnings, I recommend it.
Interesting to note on this one: it was adapted for the screen in 1925, and the movie starred the same actress (Mary Carr) that played the mother in "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse", and Auntie Em in the 1925 version of "The Wizard of Oz". Apparently she played faded, work-worn older ladies and motherly types pretty much as a specialty. Early Hollywood typecasting, I guess.
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