The Abbey Girls by Elsie J. Oxenham

The Abbey Girls by Elsie J. Oxenham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually enjoyed this?

I feel the question mark in the above is pivotal, so let’s start this review there, in that little seam of bafflement. I have read a fair few of Elsie J. Oxenham’s books now and found them a pleasant if deeply incomprehensible experience. Everybody has the same name. Everybody’s name starts with the same initial. Everybody also has another name that they’re known by. Everybody also has another another name that they’re known by as well. Something happens. Everybody has a dance. Something else happens. Everybody has a dance. Somebody has a baby (or seven). The baby has the same name as at least six other characters. The cycle begins anew. I am still baffled.

And yet, and yet, there is an enjoyment in Oxenham’s work that I’ve never quite fully been able to understand. There’s something here that makes me keep coming back to them. I contemplate disposing of my collection. I add more. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. I pick them up to reread. WHO IS JANDY MAC AND WHY DOES SHE COME BACK?? I buy several copies of Jandy Mac Comes Back.

Honestly: witchcraft.

And so, I pick up The Abbey Girls and I read and I was startled by how genuinely good it was. It’s a charming, charming thing! It’s lovely! I was startled by it! I could not cope! It’s the second in the lengthy, lengthy Abbey series and I suspect this had something to do with it. There’s sixty odd titles in the series once it’s done and inevitably, the later ones feel their position. It takes a lot to write a book and it takes even more to write sixty odd titles. The early Chalet School books are cracking. The later Chalet School books are … less so. The early Abbey Girls books are delightful. The later ones are … less so. (the Girlsown Paradox, perhaps, let’s call it that).

In this book, we meet Joan and Joy and discover much of the lore of the series. Things that make absolutely no sense (and seem to define these women’s lives for three hundred years afterwards) suddenly start to make sense. And they’re lovely! And I don’t get it! Everything is ridiculous and yet intensely delightful! If I were to put my professional head on, I’d scream things about narrative and meandering at best and oh my god, can we not have another scene of dancing, but I don’t actually care because this is just lovely! and charming! nothing makes sense and I adore it!

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