Lark Rise, discussion in progress

Blogging friend Sparkling Squirrel asked me to nominate a book for March as part of her year-long STIR project.

I chose Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson -- a volume of three books originally published separately: Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941) and Candleford Green (1943).

When pressed for a reason, I said, 'I picked Lark Rise because I saw some episodes of the BBC dramatization and really liked them, because I have it on my bookshelf already, and because it's British and probably somewhat quaint and old-timey, small-villagey and I thought you might like it!'

I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying the book so far, though I think it will make for a good discussion. We've exchanged some first impressions, and we have a longer conversation planned for next week.

Sparkling Squirrel started reading before I did, and posted this:

I've started Lark Rise and have thus far found it to be everything that Marieke expected. It is not, however, updated Jane Austen or Jane Eyre (which I perhaps was expecting just because Marieke first mentioned Lark Rise in conjunction with I Capture the Castle, which is a retelling of Jane Austen and Jane Eyre), it is not Thomas Hardy or Anthony Trollope illuminating the drama in Victorian village life, or even a Laura Ingalls Wilder moved to England (a later expectation after I realized that the books were a fictionalized memoir of growing up in a place long gone by the time of publication).

I started reading and found myself struggling to stay awake.

This is the point where I recalled what my mom said after she finished reading it last summer -- she said the TV series didn't really stick that close to the book. Should I have taken that as a hint?

Here are a few of our initial email exchanges:

Me: I have to admit that I'm bored to tears so far... I hope it picks up a bit soon.

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SS: Spoiler alert! It does not pick up.

I think the matter of expectations would be an interesting blog conversation-- I have enjoyed what I've read but it has not been at all what I expected, and I think that's the case for you, too.

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Me: I did have certain expectations, I suppose, after having seen one season of the BBC miniseries -- which ran like a serial of loosely connected episodes with recurring characters. I expected there to be a story. With characters, events, and dialogue. With a flow to it. I'm not finding that at all.

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SS: Over to Candleford starts off slightly more character-based, but then I realized I was a few chapters in AND IT WAS JUST A RECAP OF LIFE IN LARK RISE, nobody had gone to Candleford yet and while I believe that somebody will make it out of the hamlet, I thought that something would happen for the first two-thirds of Lark Rise.

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Me: No one has yet made it out of the hamlet! OMG. I don't think I'll be able to make myself read that far!

Note: I have resumed reading -- with newly adjusted expectations -- and am now enjoying it more than I did before. Now I'm approaching it as a more-or-less nonfiction account of village life in the 1880s-90s. It seems to read much easier now that I'm not looking so much for the 'story'.