Another Book to Recommend

OK, so I hope people will try reading Lloyd Alexander's work. I have another recommendation to make to you Harry Potter fans--a recommendation for a book which (like Alexander's books), I read when I was young. It's called Mistress Masham's Repose, by T. H. White, who also wrote a series of books about King Arthur (these were later collected in a volume called The Once and Future King). Mistress Masham's Repose, published in 1946, resembles the Harry Potter books in being about a lovable, mistreated orphan. Her name is Maria, and she has inherited a huge estate from her dead parents that has fallen into disrepair because there is no money to run it. Maria is funny, brave, loyal, imaginative, and wears spectacles (sound familiar?); she also suffers from being in the clutches of Dursley-ish tormenters: a horrible guardian--a sadistic clergyman--and the equally sadistic governess he hires for Maria. Of this duo White says "both . . . were so repulsive that it is difficult to write about them fairly." (That sounds very familiar, no?) The action starts when Maria discovers in the far reaches of the estate a colony of Lilliputians descended from ancestors brought back by the same Gulliver who stars in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (obviously, Gulliver is cast as a historical rather than fictional character here). What follows is a wonderful, witty allegory of colonialism: Maria thinks that because she's bigger she can just barge in and do what she wants with the Lilliputians, who are understandably resistant to her clumsy attempts to play with them. It is left to her best (and only) friend, a destitute scholar who lives nearby, to educate her gently about the politics of power and the need to stop thinking that Might is Right. Meanwhile, Maria's loathesome guardians find out about the Lilliputians and plot all kinds of nefarious schemes to exploit them for cash--plots that spell danger for Maria and her professor-friend, now allied to protect the Lilliputians' sovereignty. An incredibly funny book, as well as being a very profound one. I wonder if Rowling ever read it? I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't, as it's been shamefully neglected for years (if I am not mistaken, it is now out of print). Still, what White says about power--its uses and misuses--is quite relevant to the Potter series. If you can find a copy (and it probably is around in libraries), read it and enjoy!