Portable Magic
Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
Currently reading
The Secret of the Old Clock – ND1.4
1930 (Ch10) Nancy is rather patronizing, using her high school psychology to elicit info from Abigail Rowen, who remembers something about a notebook & mantel clock. Helen Corning makes her first appearance as a plot device, giving Nancy a reason to gain entry into the Topham house – selling tickets to a charity ball. Helen has failed to sell all her tickets, but she’s spent all her allowance, so she can’t afford to just pay for the 6 tickets she has left at a whopping $2 each. That would be $28 apiece now. Dated plot point: I suspect that gaining entrance into a charity ball these days would be considerably more expensive, and they wouldn’t be sold door-to-door.
1959 (Ch8) Nancy meets the Mathews brothers, who want to travel, then visits Abigail (now Abby) Rowan. This visit is almost identical to the 1930 version, so the changes in the writing style are more apparent. The new version is much less descriptive, less evocative. The little old lady is less childlike and self-pitying, and her lower class diction is gone. 1959 Nancy is more sympathetic. Abby is poorer, too, as she still has only $5 in her cookie jar, down to $40 in current value from $70. Dated plot point: She now gets a pension check but Medicare won’t be introduced for another 6 years, and EMTALA won’t be passed for another 27 years, so she still can’t afford to have anyone other than a random teenager determine if her hip has actually been broken.
1930 (Ch11) Devious Nancy gets into the Topham house on the pretext of selling charity tickets and manipulates the Tophams into telling her about the Crowley clock. I love the scene setting. Nancy is secretly amused that the wanna-be Tophams live in a home that’s even more ticky-tacky than she expected. It’s obviously a 1930’s version of a McMansion: “The house was a large, pretentious affair of nondescript type. It was set back from the street and seemed to look down rather aloofly upon the surrounding homes.” When Mrs. Topham initially rebuffs her attempt to sell the charity ball tickets, Nancy responds with a version of “do you know who I am”, which has the woman groveling. Nancy is obviously a member of the lofty social stratum in which the new money Tophams desperately wish to belong.
1959 (Ch9) Similar but subtly different exchange with the Tophams. Nancy is prissily shocked rather than cattily entertained with their tastelessness and manners, and responds to the initial rebuff by emphasizing that the charity ball is an important social event instead of emphasizing her own social standing. 1959 Mr. Topham “carelessly” pulls a $100 bill (~$800 in current value) from his wallet rather than the 1930 $20 bill (~$280 current).
...To be continued.
Index of posts for The Secret of the Old Clock:
10
1