Virago Monthly Reads: Feb 2018: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

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Virago Monthly Reads: Feb 2018: Dorothy Canfield Fisher

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1Soupdragon
Gen 28, 2018, 5:41 am

Share your reading plans and thoughts here.

2souloftherose
Gen 28, 2018, 7:23 am

I'm hoping to join in more with these monthly reads this year. I loved DCF's The Home-Maker which I read in the lovely Persephone Classics edition. I have a copy of the Virago edition of The Brimming Cup on my shelves so I'm going to try to read that in February.

3lauralkeet
Modificato: Gen 28, 2018, 8:19 am

>2 souloftherose: I'll be reading The Brimming Cup as well, and I'm very happy that the monthly read will be my introduction to a new-to-me Virago author.

4Soupdragon
Gen 28, 2018, 8:49 am

I'm planning on reading The Brimming Cup too and like for Laura, it will be my first Canfield Fisher. Looking forward to it and it will be interesting to compare notes.

5rainpebble
Modificato: Gen 28, 2018, 10:17 am



"Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early decades of the twentieth century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States.1 In addition to bringing the Montessori method of child-rearing to the U.S., she presided over the country's first adult education program and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.

Canfield Fisher engaged in social activism in many aspects of education and politics. She managed America's first adult education program. She did war-relief work in 1917 in France, establishing the Bidart Home for Children for refugees and organizing an effort to print books in Braille for blinded combat veterans. In 1919, she was appointed to the State Board of Education of Vermont to help improve rural public education. She spent years promoting education and rehabilitation/reform in prisons, especially women's prisons.

After the war, she was the head of the U.S. committee that led to the pardoning of conscientious objectors in 1921, and sponsored financial and emigration assistance to Jewish educators, professionals, and intellectuals.

After her son was killed in World War II, she arranged a fellowship at Harvard Medical School for the two Philippine surgeons who tried to save his life."

(borrowed from Wikipedia)

6romain
Gen 28, 2018, 11:57 am

I own 3 Canfields and have read them all. His Son's Wife is my favorite, (LOVED IT) but I also loved The Home-Maker. Can't really remember The Brimming Cup but my reading log review assures me that I read that too.

7Soupdragon
Gen 28, 2018, 12:12 pm

>5 rainpebble: Thank you, Belva 🌹

8europhile
Gen 28, 2018, 2:46 pm

i only have The Brimming Cup and the library has no others so it will be an easy lead-in to the year for me.

9Sakerfalcon
Gen 29, 2018, 6:27 am

I have The brimming cup and The home-maker (if I can find the latter!) and I've ordered Her son's wife. I'm really looking forward to exploring Fisher's work.

10lauralkeet
Gen 29, 2018, 7:05 am

>5 rainpebble: Thank you Belva. What a fascinating woman!

11NanaCC
Gen 29, 2018, 8:44 am

I’m going to try to read one book each month by the selected author. I have Home Fires in France, so that will be my Canfield Fisher.

12rainpebble
Modificato: Feb 15, 2018, 1:37 pm

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.

13Heaven-Ali
Gen 29, 2018, 4:28 pm

I have The Brimming Cup - somewhere on my bookcase - I can't see it - so it must be at the back. I am going away for a short break in three weeks time so I might take it with me.

14TheBookTrunk
Gen 30, 2018, 6:29 am

I've read The Home-Maker, which was fantastic, and got Her Son's Wife, and also have a delightful children's book, Understood Betsy.She was an interesting woman way ahead of her time in her views, and her work seems to reflect this. Apart from her passionate belief in the importance of education, she seems to have thought everyone - men, women and children - deserved the chance to fulfill their potential and find their place in the world, even if that meant ignoring the social mores of the day.

15rainpebble
Modificato: Feb 15, 2018, 1:38 pm

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.

16LyzzyBee
Feb 3, 2018, 3:36 pm

I've read The Home-Maker and The Brimming Cup and enjoyed them, so won't be joining in but hope you enjoy the month's reads!

17TheBookTrunk
Feb 5, 2018, 8:24 am

I re-read The Home-Maker, and am struck again by the way she finds roles for the various members of the family, including the children. Having a house husband and a working wife must have seemed outrageous in 1924, but I think the way the children are given a voice and allowed to discover their place in the world must also have been very unusual at that period. Child rearing then may have moved on a little from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but I think there was still an attitude that they should be seen and not and not heard, and do as they were told, and they certainly weren't expected to express their own opinions or to have likes and dislikes. I was going to write something new about the book but, much as I love it, I'm not sure that the re-read gave me any new insights or revealed things I missed first time around, so I re-posted my old review from 2011.

18rainpebble
Modificato: Feb 15, 2018, 1:39 pm

Questo messaggio è stato cancellato dall'autore.

19Sakerfalcon
Feb 6, 2018, 2:20 am

I'm about 2/3s into The brimming cup and am really enjoying it. I like that although Marise and her marriage are the centre of the story there is so much else going on around it. We see into many other characters and learn their stories and feelings so that we get to know them as well-rounded people rather than just as adjuncts to Marise's story.

I can't find my copy of The home maker - woe and despair!!!

20TheBookTrunk
Feb 6, 2018, 2:57 am

I haven't quite got to grips with doing reviews here, but The Home-Maker is on my blog - https://thebooktrunkblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/house-husband-and-working-wife...

21lauralkeet
Feb 15, 2018, 6:13 pm

I read The Brimming Cup, which was good once it started moving. But I found it difficult to get into for 200 pages! I stuck with it because I've been having difficulty with Virago reads lately and by God I was going to read this one. In the end I liked it, but it never should have taken me 12 days to get through 320 pages.

My review is on the work page, here.

22CurrerBell
Feb 15, 2018, 6:53 pm

I've never read Canfield Fisher and I don't think I have anything by her in a TRB pile somewhere, so I read The Brimming Cup, which is inexpensively available on Kindle in one of those multibook packages of public domain works.

A good enough book, but it had a sense of gossamer vagueness to it. I don't know why, but I found some of the secondary characters – Paul, Mr. Welles, Aunt Hatty, Mark, and especially (for some reason) Elly – more interesting than Marise or Vincent or Neale. And I thought the "C.K. Lowder land fraud," and Neale's involvement in it, came to a very predictable conclusion.

All in all, one of those happily-ever-after, non-very-much-conflict kind of books. 3½***

I am trying to follow this year's Monthly Read for each and every month, though, so it was worth reading. I'll get to some of my VMC treeware next month with E.H. Young.

23TheBookTrunk
Feb 17, 2018, 2:56 am

Today is Dorothy Canfield Fisher's birthday so I've reviewed Her Son's Wife on my blog (https://goo.gl/Rghbzy). I enjoyed this very much - more than The Home-Maker I think. You may not always like the characters, but they grow and change, and again there is that sense that people have to find their place in life, the thing that makes them feel fulfilled, and if they are happy so are the people around them. By the way, her fiction was originally published under the name Canfield, and she used Fisher for her non-fiction.

24lauralkeet
Feb 17, 2018, 7:28 am

>23 TheBookTrunk: but they grow and change ... if they are happy so are the people around them

That sentence is a perfect description of what happens in The Brimming Cup, and why I would have rated it higher if the pacing were better. Very well stated!

25kaggsy
Feb 17, 2018, 12:29 pm

Enjoying very much hearing people's thoughts on these books. I don't own or have access to any and can't justify bringing any more books into the house so won't be joining in this month alas... :s

26BeyondEdenRock
Feb 17, 2018, 1:10 pm

I've read Rough-Hewn, which is a prequel to The Brimming Cup. I loved the way she drew and developed her young characters and their family situations, and now I have to read the other book to see how they the two relate, and why DCF might have wanted to write the back-story.

27CurrerBell
Feb 17, 2018, 5:12 pm

>26 BeyondEdenRock: Interesting. Didn't realize that's a prequel. It's in the Kindle collection (>22 CurrerBell:), so I'll see if I have time to get to it this month.

28lauralkeet
Feb 17, 2018, 6:15 pm

>26 BeyondEdenRock: a prequel ??!! Noooo ... ! I hate reading books out of order!

29BeyondEdenRock
Feb 18, 2018, 4:39 am

>28 lauralkeet: It was written a few years later, if that's any help. Maybe you could think of it as learning more about the history of people you met after you've known them for a little while ...

30lauralkeet
Feb 18, 2018, 7:41 am

>29 BeyondEdenRock: I'm okay with that, Jane!

31CurrerBell
Feb 18, 2018, 10:56 pm

>28 lauralkeet: >29 BeyondEdenRock: Speaking of prequels, I just finished Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic and I'm going to get on to its recently published prequel The Rules of Magic.

32Sakerfalcon
Feb 20, 2018, 11:49 am

I found my copy of The home maker and have read and loved it! Such a satisfying story, yet with the sadness of society's rigidity underlying the rightness of the family's new roles. It was lovely to see everyone blossom as they found the way to live that suited them best.

Now I'm reading Her son's wife - I have to admit I put off acquiring this one for a very long time as I was the unliked daughter-in-law during my marriage and am afraid the book might hit a bit close to home!

33TheBookTrunk
Feb 23, 2018, 11:14 am

Final read this month is Understanding Betsy, a children's book by Dorothy Canfield Fisher which ought to be as well known as The Secret Garden or Edith Nesbit's books. https://goo.gl/pM5sSD

34europhile
Feb 26, 2018, 8:59 pm

I finally finished The Brimming Cup after several weeks' reading, with a lot of diversions provided by literary memoirs, letters/diaries, art books etc. This means I didn't find it compelling and it was a bit of a struggle at times. Partly this was because of its episodic character and the multiple points of view. Like CurrerBell I found some of the minor characters like Mr Welles and Paul more engaging than the three principals (though Marise had her appealing moments), and the major events which should have been shocking, even though not totally unexpected, had no impact on me at all. So overall it was a strangely unsatisfying experience.

35Sakerfalcon
Feb 27, 2018, 8:32 am

I finished Her son's wife which was an excellent read. All three of the protagonists seem more or less unsympathetic at the start of the novel, but they grow and change over the course of the story. There's a fascinating moral dilemma at the heart of the plot which raises interesting questions for the reader. While I liked The brimming cup more than Europhile and CurrerBell seemed to, I think this and The home maker are more enjoyable reads. Before this month I'd only read Understood Betsy, and agree totally with TheBookTrunk about its worth.

36romain
Feb 27, 2018, 9:03 am

I'm with the nay sayers on The Brimming Cup. I didn't say so at the beginning of the month but my reading diary shows that I didn't like it. Specifically - that it wasn't feminist enough for the 1990s me. But I loved the other two books by her that I've read.

37CurrerBell
Mar 2, 2018, 5:52 am

I just this morning finished Rough-Hewn and gave it 3***, not quite as good as The Brimming Cup (3½***), but I have the same problem with both books, what I call "gossamer vagueness." just as in The Brimming Cup, I found supporting characters – Livingstone, Eugenia, Marise's mother, and especially the Basque servant Jeanne – more interesting than Marise and (especially) Neale. I also found the material about Neale's education, especially his prep-school education, awfully preachy – a promotion, if you will, for Canfield Fisher's Montessori method.

38souloftherose
Modificato: Mar 6, 2018, 9:05 am

I belatedly finished The Brimming Cup today. As you can probably tell from the fact that it dragged into March I struggled with this one and only persevered because >21 lauralkeet: Laura told me it got better after p200. I'm not sure why I didn't like this one - it has lots of elements I normally enjoy (internal thoughts, focusing on daily life) but I was so pleased to finish it.

>22 CurrerBell:, >34 europhile: Agree with your comments that I found the secondary characters more interesting than Marise and Neale. My favourites were Elly and Mr Welles.

Also re the ending of The Brimming Cup, I was surprised how melodramatic the ending to the Powers' perceived love triangle became - it seemed completely out of place in this book. I thought there would be some kind of self-realization for one of them which would resolve things as there was for Marise and Neale.

I will try more Canfield Fisher at some point as I loved The Home-Maker but I am not feeling particularly enthused after The Brimming Cup.

39lauralkeet
Mar 6, 2018, 12:00 pm

>38 souloftherose: oh dear, I'm sorry I was such an influence on your reading! I agree with your comment on the ending, too. What the heck.

40souloftherose
Mar 10, 2018, 5:11 am

>39 lauralkeet: I didn't mean to make it sound like I was blaming you :-) I am glad you gave me the encouragement to keep going (and it did get better) and pleased that I can cross it off the list.

41lauralkeet
Mar 10, 2018, 7:21 am

>40 souloftherose: Heather, no worries. It's so difficult to capture tone of voice when writing LT posts. I felt a slight twinge of "oh dear," but did not feel like you were blaming me at all!!