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Picador A Company of Swans.
For nineteen-year-old Harriet Morton, life in 1912 Cambridge is as dry and dull as a biscuit. Her stuffy father and her opressive aunt Louisa allow her only one ballet. When a Russian ballet master comes to class searching for dancers to fill the corps of his ballet company before their South American tour, Harriet's world changes. Defying her father's wishes and narrowly escaping the clutches of the man who wishes to marry her, Harriet sneaks off to join the ballet on their journey to the Amazon. There, in the wild, lush jungle, they perform Swan Lake in grand opera houses for the wealthy and culture-deprived rubber barons, and Harriet meets Rom Verney, the handsome and mysterious British exile who owns the most ornate opera house. Utterly enchanted by both the exotic surroundings and by Rom's affections, Harriet is swept away by her new life, completely unaware that her father and would-be fiancé have begun to track her down...
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First published July 1, 1985
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About the author
Eva Ibbotson
79 books2,360 followersEva Ibbotson (Maria Charlotte Michelle Wiesner) was a novelist specializing in romance and children's fantasy.
She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler appeared, her family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, graduating with a diploma in education in 1965. Eva had intended to be a physiologist but was put off by animal testing. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960s. They have three sons and a daughter.
Eva began writing with the television drama “Linda Came Today” in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, “The Great Ghost Rescue”. Eva has written numerous books including “The Secret Of Platform 13”, “Journey To The River Sea”, “Which Witch?”, “Island Of The Aunts”, and “Dial-A-Ghost”. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for “Journey To The River Sea” and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature.
Her books are imaginative and humorous and most of them feature magical creatures and places, despite that she disliked thinking about them. She created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers' fear of such things.
Some of the books, particularly “Journey To The River Sea”, reflect Eva's love of nature. Eva wrote this book in honour of her husband (who had died before), a naturalist. The book had been in her head for years.
Eva said she dislikes "financial greed and a lust for power" and often creates antagonists in her books who have these characteristics. Some have been struck by the similarity of “Platform 9 3/4” in J.K. Rowling's books to Eva's “The Secret Of Platform 13”, which came out three years before the first Harry Potter book.
Her love of Austria is evident in works such as “The Star Of Kazan” and “A Song For Summer”. These books, set in the Austrian countryside, display the author's love for all things natural.
She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1925. When Hitler appeared, her family moved to England. She attended Bedford College, graduating in 1945; Cambridge University from 1946-47; and the University of Durham, graduating with a diploma in education in 1965. Eva had intended to be a physiologist but was put off by animal testing. Instead, she married and raised a family, returning to school to become a teacher in the 1960s. They have three sons and a daughter.
Eva began writing with the television drama “Linda Came Today” in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, “The Great Ghost Rescue”. Eva has written numerous books including “The Secret Of Platform 13”, “Journey To The River Sea”, “Which Witch?”, “Island Of The Aunts”, and “Dial-A-Ghost”. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for “Journey To The River Sea” and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature.
Her books are imaginative and humorous and most of them feature magical creatures and places, despite that she disliked thinking about them. She created the characters because she wanted to decrease her readers' fear of such things.
Some of the books, particularly “Journey To The River Sea”, reflect Eva's love of nature. Eva wrote this book in honour of her husband (who had died before), a naturalist. The book had been in her head for years.
Eva said she dislikes "financial greed and a lust for power" and often creates antagonists in her books who have these characteristics. Some have been struck by the similarity of “Platform 9 3/4” in J.K. Rowling's books to Eva's “The Secret Of Platform 13”, which came out three years before the first Harry Potter book.
Her love of Austria is evident in works such as “The Star Of Kazan” and “A Song For Summer”. These books, set in the Austrian countryside, display the author's love for all things natural.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 907 reviews
June 20, 2019
An absolute dream to read. I fell in love with bookish ballerina Harriet, wanted to snatch Henry away from his evil mother, and also fell in swoony love with Rom.
Eva Ibbotson's books are all out of this world, but this one maybe even more so than the rest. (Except maybe The Morning Gift, which I think will always be my favourite).
Eva Ibbotson's books are all out of this world, but this one maybe even more so than the rest. (Except maybe The Morning Gift, which I think will always be my favourite).
Read
February 7, 2017An odd book, with some beautiful writing, and an absolutely spot-on-target evocation of the ballet life. I think it came out in the eighties, but it has a thirties feel, though it's set in Edwardian times, just before WW I. There were moments that felt startlingly modern, then there were outdated concepts (Orientalism), and the central romance was handled oddly, based as it was on misperceptions and misunderstandings, then a stunning decision on the part of the heroine.
Was it all due to the writer being born in 1925? Maybe. But in thinking about it later, I realized that the heroine had a great deal of Fanny Price in her--emotionally abused, sensitive to beauty and to grace. The way she embraced the physical pain of professional dance got me nodding. Yep, this girl had PTSD bigtime, so of course she'd fall right in with the body-torturing effort that dance was back then, when they didn't understand how the human body works. (Girls used to be put en pointe early, so they'd grow into it, which was exactly the wrong thing to do to their feet, and they paid for it their entire lives.)
Then the heroine's decision made sense, her angry, desperate grasp at joy. And beauty.
Here's one passage about dance:
But it was class that made Harriet into a dancer. Class, that unfailing daily torture to which dancers come on every morning of their lives. Class in freezing rehearsal rooms, in foyers, on board ocean liners carrying them across the sea. Class with streaming colds, class after their lovers have jilted them, on days when women would give anything to be spared . . . Class for the prima ballerina assoluta as for the youngest member of the corps.
It was in class that Harriet saw what it cost Lubotsky, the aging character dancer, to get his muscles to warm up--yet saw too the marvelous authority he still carried. It was in class that she saw Maximus--the darling of the gallery--sweating, exhausted, crying out with the pain of a wrenched muscle . . . saw the grace and spirituality emanating from little Olga Narukova, who ten minutes earlier had pinched a boy from the corps so as to draw blood.
And if Harriet watched the others, there were those who watched her. For even in class there are those who dance the notes and those who dance the music . . .
Was it all due to the writer being born in 1925? Maybe. But in thinking about it later, I realized that the heroine had a great deal of Fanny Price in her--emotionally abused, sensitive to beauty and to grace. The way she embraced the physical pain of professional dance got me nodding. Yep, this girl had PTSD bigtime, so of course she'd fall right in with the body-torturing effort that dance was back then, when they didn't understand how the human body works. (Girls used to be put en pointe early, so they'd grow into it, which was exactly the wrong thing to do to their feet, and they paid for it their entire lives.)
Then the heroine's decision made sense, her angry, desperate grasp at joy. And beauty.
Here's one passage about dance:
But it was class that made Harriet into a dancer. Class, that unfailing daily torture to which dancers come on every morning of their lives. Class in freezing rehearsal rooms, in foyers, on board ocean liners carrying them across the sea. Class with streaming colds, class after their lovers have jilted them, on days when women would give anything to be spared . . . Class for the prima ballerina assoluta as for the youngest member of the corps.
It was in class that Harriet saw what it cost Lubotsky, the aging character dancer, to get his muscles to warm up--yet saw too the marvelous authority he still carried. It was in class that she saw Maximus--the darling of the gallery--sweating, exhausted, crying out with the pain of a wrenched muscle . . . saw the grace and spirituality emanating from little Olga Narukova, who ten minutes earlier had pinched a boy from the corps so as to draw blood.
And if Harriet watched the others, there were those who watched her. For even in class there are those who dance the notes and those who dance the music . . .
January 27, 2022
Utterly charming story as all Eva Ibbotson’s stories are and full of quirky and whimsical characters under the guise of a romance.
The Characters
Her father: A desiccated stick that gets a comical and well deserved comeuppance.
Her equally desiccated aunt who has a box in her room labeled “String too short to tie” which is possibly my favorite description EVER of a character.
The fiancee: A boring scientific type stick that specializes in fleas as they “are his bread and butter” but lusts after Lepidoptera’s (butterflies). He tries to track her down in Manaus with dismal results for him.
The heroine: Willing to take a risk on her desire to dance and take a voyage to Brazil.
The hero: More than a touch of dashing and very appreciative of the heroine’s qualities without being boring.
The ex aka OW: Greedy, selfish and a bad mother. She meddles with some bad consequences and no real comeuppance other than not getting the hero.
Evil OW's plot moppet: The long-suffering sweetheart of a little boy that idolizes the uncle he’s never met and befriends lonely Harriet.
Plot
Harriet is not just saddled with a boring name, but a misogynistic father and a penny-pinching Aunt. A born romantic and a ballet dancer, her life is restricted by her father’s expectations: nothing. No, to be fair he does plan to marry her off to a stuffed shirt.
Instead she runs away to a ballet troupe that will debut in 1912 Brazil. The Brazil in this book is not the Brazil we know today and is almost another character. Ibbotson presents a romantic view of ex-pat Europeans in a foreign country as well as a ballet troupe that is dominated by an emotional diva and a score of under ballerinas.
One memorable scene is where Harriet balances on a table sized Victoria Regia water Lilly.
The humor is wry and gentle, and I really can’t say enough about Ibbotson’s writing as it’s intelligent and witty.
P.S.
I stole this from another reviewer that details the intelligence of Ms. Ibbotson.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
The Characters
Her father: A desiccated stick that gets a comical and well deserved comeuppance.
Her equally desiccated aunt who has a box in her room labeled “String too short to tie” which is possibly my favorite description EVER of a character.
The fiancee: A boring scientific type stick that specializes in fleas as they “are his bread and butter” but lusts after Lepidoptera’s (butterflies). He tries to track her down in Manaus with dismal results for him.
The heroine: Willing to take a risk on her desire to dance and take a voyage to Brazil.
The hero: More than a touch of dashing and very appreciative of the heroine’s qualities without being boring.
The ex aka OW: Greedy, selfish and a bad mother. She meddles with some bad consequences and no real comeuppance other than not getting the hero.
Evil OW's plot moppet: The long-suffering sweetheart of a little boy that idolizes the uncle he’s never met and befriends lonely Harriet.
Plot
Harriet is not just saddled with a boring name, but a misogynistic father and a penny-pinching Aunt. A born romantic and a ballet dancer, her life is restricted by her father’s expectations: nothing. No, to be fair he does plan to marry her off to a stuffed shirt.
Instead she runs away to a ballet troupe that will debut in 1912 Brazil. The Brazil in this book is not the Brazil we know today and is almost another character. Ibbotson presents a romantic view of ex-pat Europeans in a foreign country as well as a ballet troupe that is dominated by an emotional diva and a score of under ballerinas.
One memorable scene is where Harriet balances on a table sized Victoria Regia water Lilly.
The humor is wry and gentle, and I really can’t say enough about Ibbotson’s writing as it’s intelligent and witty.
P.S.
I stole this from another reviewer that details the intelligence of Ms. Ibbotson.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
February 26, 2008
Here's a checklist for you:
1. do you like ballet?
2. do you enjoy romantic semi-tragedies?
3. would you travel to the Amazon to escape from over-bearing and protecting family members?
4. would you defy everything you've been brought up to believe for something you think is right?
If you say yes to at least to of these, then this book is definetly one you will read again and again!
1. do you like ballet?
2. do you enjoy romantic semi-tragedies?
3. would you travel to the Amazon to escape from over-bearing and protecting family members?
4. would you defy everything you've been brought up to believe for something you think is right?
If you say yes to at least to of these, then this book is definetly one you will read again and again!
May 18, 2017
Imprinting, it's called. The perfect book; the developing reader. The conviction thereafter that all other books are striving to be this one.
Why is The Company of Swans *so* good? - and, believe me, even years later, it really is still that good.
Partly it's because the plot is pure Cinderella (my favourite trope): Harriet Morton is cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd by the conventions of Edwardian Cambridge. Her widowed father and aunt live unimaginative lives of quiet monotony, and actively discourage Harriet from anything more. I love the way that even in the first short line of the book, Eva Ibbotson manages to suggest both unseen lecturing voices and Harriet's reluctance acquiesence -
There was no lovelier view in England, Harriet knew this.
EI is terrific at sketching character with the barest but most telling detail. Here's Harriet's aunt -
Louisa Morton counted the fish-knives on Thursdays and the silver plate on Saturdays and kept in her bedroom a box labelled “String too short to tie.”
Or our first introduction to the eligible young man Aunt Louisa has in mind for Harriet.
Edward Finch-Dutton was dissecting the efferent nervous system of a large and somewhat pickled dogfish. The deeply dead elasmobranch lay in a large dish with a waxed bottom, pins spearing the flaps of its rough and spotted skin.
One knows instantly that Edward Finch-Dutton is not the man to make Harriet happy.
And, as with Cinderella, Harriet is offered the opportunity to dance her way out of her constricted life, when a Russian impresario visits the ballet class she attends and asks her to join his troupe, which is heading for the Amazon.
Beneath his words, as he began to describe the journey he would make, there beat the grave exotic rhythm that enables the Slavs to make poetry even of a laundry list.
Ibbotson creates a whole cast of dancers - each a complete character study, such as Marie-Claude.
The creation of brown-eyed blondes has long been regarded as one of God’s better ideas....Marie-Claude was entirely faithful to her fiancé, and though occasionally willing (if the price was right) to emerge from a sea-shell at the Trocadero or sit on a swing in some nightclub clad only in her hair, she did so strictly to earn money for the restaurant which she and Vincent were proposing to open in the hills above Nice...
“It must be incredible, being so beautiful,” said Harriet now, overawed by the sight of Marie-Claude in her shift preparing for bed.
“Not at all,” said the French girl dismissively. “Until I met Vincent it was extremely disagreeable. From the age of six I had to go everywhere with a hat-pin. Even so, it wasn’t always so simple. For example, when I was fifteen there was an old gentleman who used to wait for me outside school and offer to give a thousand francs to the Red Cross if I would let him see me brush my hair. Obviously, simply to jab a hat-pin into such an old gentleman would not have been correct. It is, after all, a very good cause, the Red Cross."
One of the things that slightly dates the book is the delayed introduction of Rom Verney - though we've heard of him, he doesn't appear in person till about 25%. Which is a pity, because Rom is gorgeous. Self-exiled from England and his envious half-brother (and, more to the point, from his brother's wife, Rom's fickle lost love), Rom is everything a hero should be: tortured, honourable, intelligent, and in love with Harriet at first sight.
“This one,” a voice had said inside him. “This one is for me.”
There are misunderstandings (of course) but they are cleared up quickly: the important thing is Rom and Harriet in love, not fighting. They are both unashamedly romantics -
"You know-- Heloise and Abelard, Tristan and Isolde--To love in moderation was all right, but when it became excessive...you were punished. And yet it must be right, surely, to give everything? To hold nothing back? That must be what one wants to do?"
rather than practical -
"Marie-Claude ...gets very annoyed with people like Romeo. He should have got a chicken feather, she thinks, and laid it on Juliet’s lips to see if she was breathing, not rushed about and killed himself."
What I particularly like is that Harriet has the confidence to be an assertive lover, an equal partner, and that Rom is delighted by her. Although it's clear Rom & Harriet are lovers, Ibbotson doesn't need to show them in bed in detail - their physical and emotional delight in each other is evident in every line.
He pulled her down so that she lay against his shoulder. “It’s bad for people to get what they want--it deprives them of their dreams. I’ll explain it to you. Later.”
By the time trouble comes, in the forms of Edward Finch-Dutton and Rom's manipulative sister-in-law, I've completely bought into the perfection of their love. That's what makes it easy for Ibbotson to tug so hard at my heartstrings (both then, and now) when things go wrong - badly wrong. It doesn't matter how often I read this book (roughly once a year), or how many times I bite my lip while muttering "Big girls don't cry; big girls don't cry"---I cry. Every. Single. Time.
Do I need to tell you the ugly sisters are set at naught, and there's a happy ending? Even for Edward Finch-Dutton.
----
Eva Ibbotson came to the UK before WWII, and there's an absolutely gorgeous account of her early time in England here.
Why is The Company of Swans *so* good? - and, believe me, even years later, it really is still that good.
Partly it's because the plot is pure Cinderella (my favourite trope): Harriet Morton is cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd by the conventions of Edwardian Cambridge. Her widowed father and aunt live unimaginative lives of quiet monotony, and actively discourage Harriet from anything more. I love the way that even in the first short line of the book, Eva Ibbotson manages to suggest both unseen lecturing voices and Harriet's reluctance acquiesence -
There was no lovelier view in England, Harriet knew this.
EI is terrific at sketching character with the barest but most telling detail. Here's Harriet's aunt -
Louisa Morton counted the fish-knives on Thursdays and the silver plate on Saturdays and kept in her bedroom a box labelled “String too short to tie.”
Or our first introduction to the eligible young man Aunt Louisa has in mind for Harriet.
Edward Finch-Dutton was dissecting the efferent nervous system of a large and somewhat pickled dogfish. The deeply dead elasmobranch lay in a large dish with a waxed bottom, pins spearing the flaps of its rough and spotted skin.
One knows instantly that Edward Finch-Dutton is not the man to make Harriet happy.
And, as with Cinderella, Harriet is offered the opportunity to dance her way out of her constricted life, when a Russian impresario visits the ballet class she attends and asks her to join his troupe, which is heading for the Amazon.
Beneath his words, as he began to describe the journey he would make, there beat the grave exotic rhythm that enables the Slavs to make poetry even of a laundry list.
Ibbotson creates a whole cast of dancers - each a complete character study, such as Marie-Claude.
The creation of brown-eyed blondes has long been regarded as one of God’s better ideas....Marie-Claude was entirely faithful to her fiancé, and though occasionally willing (if the price was right) to emerge from a sea-shell at the Trocadero or sit on a swing in some nightclub clad only in her hair, she did so strictly to earn money for the restaurant which she and Vincent were proposing to open in the hills above Nice...
“It must be incredible, being so beautiful,” said Harriet now, overawed by the sight of Marie-Claude in her shift preparing for bed.
“Not at all,” said the French girl dismissively. “Until I met Vincent it was extremely disagreeable. From the age of six I had to go everywhere with a hat-pin. Even so, it wasn’t always so simple. For example, when I was fifteen there was an old gentleman who used to wait for me outside school and offer to give a thousand francs to the Red Cross if I would let him see me brush my hair. Obviously, simply to jab a hat-pin into such an old gentleman would not have been correct. It is, after all, a very good cause, the Red Cross."
One of the things that slightly dates the book is the delayed introduction of Rom Verney - though we've heard of him, he doesn't appear in person till about 25%. Which is a pity, because Rom is gorgeous. Self-exiled from England and his envious half-brother (and, more to the point, from his brother's wife, Rom's fickle lost love), Rom is everything a hero should be: tortured, honourable, intelligent, and in love with Harriet at first sight.
“This one,” a voice had said inside him. “This one is for me.”
There are misunderstandings (of course) but they are cleared up quickly: the important thing is Rom and Harriet in love, not fighting. They are both unashamedly romantics -
"You know-- Heloise and Abelard, Tristan and Isolde--To love in moderation was all right, but when it became excessive...you were punished. And yet it must be right, surely, to give everything? To hold nothing back? That must be what one wants to do?"
rather than practical -
"Marie-Claude ...gets very annoyed with people like Romeo. He should have got a chicken feather, she thinks, and laid it on Juliet’s lips to see if she was breathing, not rushed about and killed himself."
What I particularly like is that Harriet has the confidence to be an assertive lover, an equal partner, and that Rom is delighted by her. Although it's clear Rom & Harriet are lovers, Ibbotson doesn't need to show them in bed in detail - their physical and emotional delight in each other is evident in every line.
He pulled her down so that she lay against his shoulder. “It’s bad for people to get what they want--it deprives them of their dreams. I’ll explain it to you. Later.”
By the time trouble comes, in the forms of Edward Finch-Dutton and Rom's manipulative sister-in-law, I've completely bought into the perfection of their love. That's what makes it easy for Ibbotson to tug so hard at my heartstrings (both then, and now) when things go wrong - badly wrong. It doesn't matter how often I read this book (roughly once a year), or how many times I bite my lip while muttering "Big girls don't cry; big girls don't cry"---I cry. Every. Single. Time.
Do I need to tell you the ugly sisters are set at naught, and there's a happy ending? Even for Edward Finch-Dutton.
----
Eva Ibbotson came to the UK before WWII, and there's an absolutely gorgeous account of her early time in England here.
April 3, 2011
I love Eva Ibbotson's writing. It's funny, witty and refreshing. And I liked Harriet too, even though she was humble and quiet and good, which is something I usually can't stand in a heroine. I admired her innocence, enjoyed the detail of ballet life and the intricate and laugh-inducing writing. But abruptly ending my enjoyment came the unfortunate circumstances between pages 287 and 295 and several subsequent pages after that. It wasn't just the acts of adultery that offended and disappointed me. It was also the fact that they added nothing to the story; in fact, it was a major detraction. After that chapter or so I lost all the respect I had carefully built up for Harriet. I almost hated her and had absolutely no sympathy for anything that happened to her afterward. She lost the one and only thing that made me respect her: her innocence. I lost any interest I had in and for Rom too. I mean just because a girl invites you to do something, as a much older and more mature man, he shouldn't have given in. Their disregard for true love and waiting for marriage drained the story of everything that made it sweet and after that I just couldn't wait to get through and be done with the book. The girl who did those things wasn't Harriet anymore. The real Harriet would have waited. Eva Ibbotson took a good character and drove her into the ground. Which, sadly, could have been avoided by cutting those most unnecessary scenes.
I almost gave this book three stars because Ms. Ibbotson IS an excellent writer and the unsullied scenes are brilliantly written and truly funny, but, as Harriet clearly delighted to say, she was a ruined woman and her ruination absolutely ruined the book. I cannot condone what she did, even though her story (other than a few parts) was delightful.
I almost gave this book three stars because Ms. Ibbotson IS an excellent writer and the unsullied scenes are brilliantly written and truly funny, but, as Harriet clearly delighted to say, she was a ruined woman and her ruination absolutely ruined the book. I cannot condone what she did, even though her story (other than a few parts) was delightful.
May 25, 2023
ballet? cool. the romance and russian stereotypes? not cool.
Read
January 10, 2023january, 2023:
stand by that this is deeply dubious. it is also, unfortunately, the only eva audiobook i could get my hands on and i am singleminded in my desire to be comforted.
january, 2021:
on the one hand, this is the Most Uncomfortable eva ibbotson i've read; it feels like all her favourite elements are at their extremes in this one, the biddable, childlikeness of the heroine, the ten year age gap, the almost predatory desire fr innocence & delicacy, the hero's wealth & power coming from a hugely romanticised vision of colonialist exploitation. some, & occasionally all, of these have shown up in the other novels & short stories i've read from her so far, & have felt easier to forgive as products of a specific period and romantic sensibility, but this one went so Hard i found it much harder to be charmed by everything else, even ibbotson's narrative voice & quirky side characters ?
but on the other hand, ballet ? i think i wrote a long(ish) Thing abt how i feel abt ballet & the image of the ballerina in my review of russian winter, & i don't have much to add other than that thinking abt it gave Dimension to my reading of this book -- it's v interesting to me how ballet crystallises some of ibbotson's patterns w gender & desire & bodies.
stand by that this is deeply dubious. it is also, unfortunately, the only eva audiobook i could get my hands on and i am singleminded in my desire to be comforted.
january, 2021:
on the one hand, this is the Most Uncomfortable eva ibbotson i've read; it feels like all her favourite elements are at their extremes in this one, the biddable, childlikeness of the heroine, the ten year age gap, the almost predatory desire fr innocence & delicacy, the hero's wealth & power coming from a hugely romanticised vision of colonialist exploitation. some, & occasionally all, of these have shown up in the other novels & short stories i've read from her so far, & have felt easier to forgive as products of a specific period and romantic sensibility, but this one went so Hard i found it much harder to be charmed by everything else, even ibbotson's narrative voice & quirky side characters ?
but on the other hand, ballet ? i think i wrote a long(ish) Thing abt how i feel abt ballet & the image of the ballerina in my review of russian winter, & i don't have much to add other than that thinking abt it gave Dimension to my reading of this book -- it's v interesting to me how ballet crystallises some of ibbotson's patterns w gender & desire & bodies.
April 22, 2021
‘Sometimes I think you’re a little mad. Perhaps you should come upstairs,' he had said furiously. ‘I don’t seem to be able to make you understand anything when you’re on your feet.’
Ooh, so rapey. Uh, I mean romantic. Not your best, Eva.
This novel is problematic. (Yes, I can hear you sharpening your pitchforks.) To anyone poised to attack me with the specious argument that the novel reflects the moral orthodoxy of the time in which it is set, written or received and can therefore be exempt from any criticism in this department: beware, your efforts to enlighten me will be in vain.
I have an increasingly complicated relationship with Eva Ibbotson. My opinion of her has been swinging like a pendulum for some months now. Once in a while, she bowls me over with a real gem. A Song for Summer and The Secret Countess are well worth your time. They are warming, wholesome tales thronging with wonderful characters, and certainly not without their share of gravitas. But then she hits me with something like The Morning Gift, or A Company of Swans. And this is where my confidence falters.
I’m relatively well-versed in her works now, so believe me when I say that Ibbotson’s novels are formulaic. There’s a young, prettily plain virtuous heroine who, against all odds, turns the head of an older, brooding and sexually experienced man 10+ years her senior. Not necessarily an issue - look, I love Jane Eyre - but it’s examples like this one that make me exceptionally uncomfortable.
Age gaps don’t agitate me as a rule. I have no problem with them, on the condition that a) neither are minors and b) they are of the same emotional maturity. The latter does not necessarily equate to life experience, but emotional intelligence. Otherwise this is where a power dynamic emerges. Harriet, the heroine, is a rather drippy Mary Sue – certainly not an example of the courageous women of integrity that Ibbotson can write. Once again, she captures the attention of an older, exotic man (invariably rich from colonial misadventures) with a dark past and plenty of notches in the bedpost. The slippery relationship that emerges is bizarrely paternal (Rom explicitly refers to her on multiple occasions as ‘a child’ and also calls her ‘my dear’) and explicitly controlling. His fascination with her is only contingent to her virginal status. I don’t understand how this could be deemed romantic, I’m sorry.
This is the main offence of the novel, but A Company of Swans is not up to scratch with Ibbotson’s other novels in other facets. Whereas others are full of wonderful side characters with flamboyant idiosyncrasies, the supporting cast here falls flat. I had little sense of the setting, and the drama from the ridiculous misunderstandings could have been averted with simple communication - a crucial element, unsurprisingly, normally exhibited in healthy, functioning relationships.
I cannot attest to the accuracy of the ballet, but it was certainly immersive to me.
Should I bother with Magic Flutes? Please let me know!
Ooh, so rapey. Uh, I mean romantic. Not your best, Eva.
This novel is problematic. (Yes, I can hear you sharpening your pitchforks.) To anyone poised to attack me with the specious argument that the novel reflects the moral orthodoxy of the time in which it is set, written or received and can therefore be exempt from any criticism in this department: beware, your efforts to enlighten me will be in vain.
I have an increasingly complicated relationship with Eva Ibbotson. My opinion of her has been swinging like a pendulum for some months now. Once in a while, she bowls me over with a real gem. A Song for Summer and The Secret Countess are well worth your time. They are warming, wholesome tales thronging with wonderful characters, and certainly not without their share of gravitas. But then she hits me with something like The Morning Gift, or A Company of Swans. And this is where my confidence falters.
I’m relatively well-versed in her works now, so believe me when I say that Ibbotson’s novels are formulaic. There’s a young, prettily plain virtuous heroine who, against all odds, turns the head of an older, brooding and sexually experienced man 10+ years her senior. Not necessarily an issue - look, I love Jane Eyre - but it’s examples like this one that make me exceptionally uncomfortable.
Age gaps don’t agitate me as a rule. I have no problem with them, on the condition that a) neither are minors and b) they are of the same emotional maturity. The latter does not necessarily equate to life experience, but emotional intelligence. Otherwise this is where a power dynamic emerges. Harriet, the heroine, is a rather drippy Mary Sue – certainly not an example of the courageous women of integrity that Ibbotson can write. Once again, she captures the attention of an older, exotic man (invariably rich from colonial misadventures) with a dark past and plenty of notches in the bedpost. The slippery relationship that emerges is bizarrely paternal (Rom explicitly refers to her on multiple occasions as ‘a child’ and also calls her ‘my dear’) and explicitly controlling. His fascination with her is only contingent to her virginal status. I don’t understand how this could be deemed romantic, I’m sorry.
This is the main offence of the novel, but A Company of Swans is not up to scratch with Ibbotson’s other novels in other facets. Whereas others are full of wonderful side characters with flamboyant idiosyncrasies, the supporting cast here falls flat. I had little sense of the setting, and the drama from the ridiculous misunderstandings could have been averted with simple communication - a crucial element, unsurprisingly, normally exhibited in healthy, functioning relationships.
I cannot attest to the accuracy of the ballet, but it was certainly immersive to me.
Should I bother with Magic Flutes? Please let me know!
February 7, 2017
At eighteen years of age, Harriet Jane Morton lived in the attic of her father's depressive house. Her sweet mother died when she was a little girl along with what remaining love was in her life. Her stifling spinster Aunt Louisa assisted her brother in running the house. I won't call it a home because it was just a building. With people living in it.
The always-serious Professor Morton expected his daughter to marry the man he had chosen. A zoologist, Edward Finch-Dutton gave himself the goal of classifying his Aphaniptera. Fleas. He planned to marry the quiet, intelligent Harriet and place her in a house at the edge of town. In time, say five, no...eight years, he would allow her to have a baby. Until then, he expected her to listen and comfort him.
With all her heartache Harriet still managed to find love through the art of ballet. She poured her soul into relentless, repetitive practice and while she worked, she was utterly happy. So when she was offered a job (!) with Monsieur Dubrov and a chance to travel up the Amazon, she couldn't help but mention it at her father's dinner party that evening. And, abruptly, she was told NO.
So she did the only thing she could: she ran away. To a freedom unlike any she had known before.
Ahhh, Ms. Ibbotson. The lyrical words. The lifelike setting. The heart wrenching -and- heartwarming flashes of time. The fascinating characters especially, yes, most importantly, Harriet. And the effervescent yet serious seedling, Rom. Years before they met he had already escaped the cultivation of England. Harriet and Rom were destined to be soulmates.
The only reason I gave this adult fairy tale four stars was because of This was a powerful, emotional story.
I heartily recommend this romance and am looking forward to more from this author!
The always-serious Professor Morton expected his daughter to marry the man he had chosen. A zoologist, Edward Finch-Dutton gave himself the goal of classifying his Aphaniptera. Fleas. He planned to marry the quiet, intelligent Harriet and place her in a house at the edge of town. In time, say five, no...eight years, he would allow her to have a baby. Until then, he expected her to listen and comfort him.
With all her heartache Harriet still managed to find love through the art of ballet. She poured her soul into relentless, repetitive practice and while she worked, she was utterly happy. So when she was offered a job (!) with Monsieur Dubrov and a chance to travel up the Amazon, she couldn't help but mention it at her father's dinner party that evening. And, abruptly, she was told NO.
So she did the only thing she could: she ran away. To a freedom unlike any she had known before.
Ahhh, Ms. Ibbotson. The lyrical words. The lifelike setting. The heart wrenching -and- heartwarming flashes of time. The fascinating characters especially, yes, most importantly, Harriet. And the effervescent yet serious seedling, Rom. Years before they met he had already escaped the cultivation of England. Harriet and Rom were destined to be soulmates.
The only reason I gave this adult fairy tale four stars was because of This was a powerful, emotional story.
I heartily recommend this romance and am looking forward to more from this author!
March 28, 2015
How anyone can give this one star is just...beyond me. Lyrical writing, a wonderful heroine (a drip? Seriously? A DRIP? No. So brave. You put yourself in her situation and see how brave YOU are.) A terrific, sexy hero. Sure, there's a Big Misunderstanding. Not my favorite part, but I don't care. An old-fashioned, sweeping romance, a terrific sense of place, a book I've read again and again. Love it.
February 10, 2014
Frankly, quite a surprising disappointment. Eva Ibbotson's romances half-scandalized me as a teenager, but at least they were generally clean. They were appropriate, anyway, which is is more than I feel I can say for this novel. I wouldn't have read it except that Chara was so insistent that this was her favorite Ibbotson book she had ever read (which, considering she has read all of two, only says so much). However, I am a sucker for a book, any book, and particularly for a highly recommended book. And so I read A Company of Swans. The beginning was cheesy but not terrible. I figured I could zip through the tangled beginning, pretend to enjoy the foreseeable misunderstandings, and conclude with a satisfied sigh by the end. Except...well, I feel no satisfaction with this novel. Just a sense of pity...and regret for what might have been a mildly pleasing romance.
The story follows Harriet Morton, the strictly reared daughter of a Cambridge professor. Even though it is 1912, her Father refuses to send his intelligent daughter to college and even withdrew her from boarding school after the subject was brought up. No, Harriet is to be married to the ever respectable and fairly dull Edward Finch-Dutton as soon as the time is right. She yearns for more, though, and when an opportunity is offered for her to join a Russian ballet company about to tour South America, she jumps at the chance and runs away from home. In the Amazon, she meets Rom, an incredibly wealthy man with a sad past...yadyadydayada
Insert insta-love.
Finch-Dutton follows her to the Amazon. Rom's old flame shows up. Predictable misunderstandings ensue.
However, predictable misunderstandings can still make for a good plot if done right. Unfortunately, they aren't in this book. Finch-Dutton is a dolt easily taken care of and his presence gives no sense of climax or alarm. If he is a antagonist, he is the dullest one I have yet read. There is nothing dangerous about him. He's sweet but slightly strange at the beginning with his snapping of butterfly necks but turns into an idiot once he matches wits...of sorts...with Rom.
Rom's old flame? She at least is evil, and apparently remarkably cunning, but that entire plot element is rushed over. Her actions are plotted and ignored throughout the book and suddenly she is with Rom (how did she get there?), swooning in his arms (why did he catch her?), and somehow provided for a convenient and quick escape for Harriet (how did she know...? About the guards and the theater leaving and EVERYTHING?) At any rate, it was to rushed, to absurd, and to predictable to make a good climax.
It would have be cute to have more Henry Jr.-Rom-Harriet moments.
What to say about Rom? He's one of those characters designed to appeal to females. You know, the kind who is brave, considerate, has an entirely random side plot about helping the innocent...and maybe in some ways it works. There is certainly nothing overtly objectionable about him. However, I got immensely sick of hearing about his former lovers. Once, okay, we understand he has used women. Twice, yes, he is a rake. Three times....four...
Why did he feel the need to confess to Harriet about his former life after he figures out she knows his nephew? Like, every single stupid detail?
Why should the reader consider him as eternally faithful to Harriet? He certainly seems to have fallen for and dismissed plenty of girls before.
Why on earth would he fall for Harriet? A slip of a girl...because it 'feels right'? I used to laugh when Jess ranted about love at first sight but in this book I think my dear friend would have an excellent point. It just isn't believable. Why would a hardened man ten years her senior fall faithfully, eternally, and deeply in love with her? Because she is virtuous and got herself in an awkward position or something? Gosh, read These Old Shades and Devil's Cub for a much better use of those two themes.
No, he makes no sense. Created to make women swoon, he nevertheless provides no useful attributes to be swooned over. He is like any other 'token hero' and will quickly disappear from my memory. Perhaps I would have at least liked him...but the constant reference to former women bored and eventually disgusted me.
I also disliked his treatment of Harriet's father at the end. Sure, the man might be slightly ridiculous and certainly overdrawn but to throw him in a pool or whatever it was is the height of disrespect. He might have abused his daughter but Rom behaved like a moron. Plus, the father technically had more of a right to his daughter than Rom. I'm not talking about him owning his daughter or anything. I mean, she's his underage daughter. He doesn't have to be forced into anything. And Rom's behavior with Harriet was hardly appropriate earlier anyway.
The students in his class all ought to be expelled.
And on that note. Cambridge. I confess I don't know much about it, my semester was spent studying at Oxford. However, they do not have tutors in Cambridge. They have supervisors. Please, please if writing about a particular college get the terminology right! It jarred me every time I read tutorials.
Anyway, that leaves me one last person. Harriet. She was an insipid, sweet fairy-tale heroine for most of the book. Her random moments of impulsiveness serve to push the heroine along but don't fit well with her character. However, it is easy to view her as the passive princess until the stupid idiot decides to take matters into her own hands. In "ruining herself", she not only ruins any sympathy the reader might have but any virtue that might have attracted Rom in the first place. She is no better than his previous women. And on top of it all...she doesn't have to. Everything would have been so much better if she had just...waited. Brom would have married her. Was planning on marrying. But you say, how was she to know that? CLEARLY she understood he was interested. Yet the book tells us that she was unaware of his romantic feelings...how do those two things mesh? She is an idiot who throws herself at a man and because of it misunderstands the situation when his old flame arrives. She refuses to wait and dream of a future and drives her lover away by making him think she has another love (aka...ballet).
I thought she was terribly stupid when she allows herself to be draped in a negligee and taken in front of a man. Turns out, her stupidity goes even farther.
You know what makes a better book with a less traumatic ending for everyone involved? Brom protects her virtue, she lets him, and in the end he can present her to father perfectly well and request her hand in marriage. No break. No scandal. No misunderstandings.
The story follows Harriet Morton, the strictly reared daughter of a Cambridge professor. Even though it is 1912, her Father refuses to send his intelligent daughter to college and even withdrew her from boarding school after the subject was brought up. No, Harriet is to be married to the ever respectable and fairly dull Edward Finch-Dutton as soon as the time is right. She yearns for more, though, and when an opportunity is offered for her to join a Russian ballet company about to tour South America, she jumps at the chance and runs away from home. In the Amazon, she meets Rom, an incredibly wealthy man with a sad past...yadyadydayada
Insert insta-love.
Finch-Dutton follows her to the Amazon. Rom's old flame shows up. Predictable misunderstandings ensue.
However, predictable misunderstandings can still make for a good plot if done right. Unfortunately, they aren't in this book. Finch-Dutton is a dolt easily taken care of and his presence gives no sense of climax or alarm. If he is a antagonist, he is the dullest one I have yet read. There is nothing dangerous about him. He's sweet but slightly strange at the beginning with his snapping of butterfly necks but turns into an idiot once he matches wits...of sorts...with Rom.
Rom's old flame? She at least is evil, and apparently remarkably cunning, but that entire plot element is rushed over. Her actions are plotted and ignored throughout the book and suddenly she is with Rom (how did she get there?), swooning in his arms (why did he catch her?), and somehow provided for a convenient and quick escape for Harriet (how did she know...? About the guards and the theater leaving and EVERYTHING?) At any rate, it was to rushed, to absurd, and to predictable to make a good climax.
It would have be cute to have more Henry Jr.-Rom-Harriet moments.
What to say about Rom? He's one of those characters designed to appeal to females. You know, the kind who is brave, considerate, has an entirely random side plot about helping the innocent...and maybe in some ways it works. There is certainly nothing overtly objectionable about him. However, I got immensely sick of hearing about his former lovers. Once, okay, we understand he has used women. Twice, yes, he is a rake. Three times....four...
Why did he feel the need to confess to Harriet about his former life after he figures out she knows his nephew? Like, every single stupid detail?
Why should the reader consider him as eternally faithful to Harriet? He certainly seems to have fallen for and dismissed plenty of girls before.
Why on earth would he fall for Harriet? A slip of a girl...because it 'feels right'? I used to laugh when Jess ranted about love at first sight but in this book I think my dear friend would have an excellent point. It just isn't believable. Why would a hardened man ten years her senior fall faithfully, eternally, and deeply in love with her? Because she is virtuous and got herself in an awkward position or something? Gosh, read These Old Shades and Devil's Cub for a much better use of those two themes.
No, he makes no sense. Created to make women swoon, he nevertheless provides no useful attributes to be swooned over. He is like any other 'token hero' and will quickly disappear from my memory. Perhaps I would have at least liked him...but the constant reference to former women bored and eventually disgusted me.
I also disliked his treatment of Harriet's father at the end. Sure, the man might be slightly ridiculous and certainly overdrawn but to throw him in a pool or whatever it was is the height of disrespect. He might have abused his daughter but Rom behaved like a moron. Plus, the father technically had more of a right to his daughter than Rom. I'm not talking about him owning his daughter or anything. I mean, she's his underage daughter. He doesn't have to be forced into anything. And Rom's behavior with Harriet was hardly appropriate earlier anyway.
The students in his class all ought to be expelled.
And on that note. Cambridge. I confess I don't know much about it, my semester was spent studying at Oxford. However, they do not have tutors in Cambridge. They have supervisors. Please, please if writing about a particular college get the terminology right! It jarred me every time I read tutorials.
Anyway, that leaves me one last person. Harriet. She was an insipid, sweet fairy-tale heroine for most of the book. Her random moments of impulsiveness serve to push the heroine along but don't fit well with her character. However, it is easy to view her as the passive princess until the stupid idiot decides to take matters into her own hands. In "ruining herself", she not only ruins any sympathy the reader might have but any virtue that might have attracted Rom in the first place. She is no better than his previous women. And on top of it all...she doesn't have to. Everything would have been so much better if she had just...waited. Brom would have married her. Was planning on marrying. But you say, how was she to know that? CLEARLY she understood he was interested. Yet the book tells us that she was unaware of his romantic feelings...how do those two things mesh? She is an idiot who throws herself at a man and because of it misunderstands the situation when his old flame arrives. She refuses to wait and dream of a future and drives her lover away by making him think she has another love (aka...ballet).
I thought she was terribly stupid when she allows herself to be draped in a negligee and taken in front of a man. Turns out, her stupidity goes even farther.
You know what makes a better book with a less traumatic ending for everyone involved? Brom protects her virtue, she lets him, and in the end he can present her to father perfectly well and request her hand in marriage. No break. No scandal. No misunderstandings.
February 22, 2011
*4.5 stars*
This is my second book by this author and I just loved it. Her books have been recently marketed as YA but like the last one, this is really a clean historical romance with a really great heroine (nice, loving, smart, hard worker) who is NOT a beauty but still shines because of her personality. Add to that the great setting (a ballet company touring Brazil in the 1910s), an interesting hero and an amazing cast of secondary characters and you get another gem by Ibbotson.
The ballet company was an integral part of the story so a lot of the action revolves around rehearsals, the dances, etc. I know nothing of ballet but I didn’t find it hard to follow along (Zozia, I was thinking of you while I was reading) even though there were a lot of French terms. :) Of course, it helped that the plots of the different ballets they danced were explained so the readers could understand what was going on.
While the heroine’s setting was the ballet company, the hero was Brazil’s. The untamed land, the exotic animals, the mix of cultures, the injustices, all were a reflection of the hero’s background and personality. Like every hero worth his salt, he’s the kind of man that every woman desires. One of my favorite lines in the whole book is the ballerina’s speculations of the hero’s prowess in bed: "a night with such a man and one could hardly manage three fouettés, let alone thirty-two..."
There were a bunch of minor villains, all doing their part to separate the hero and heroine. Of these, my favorite was the wannabe fiancé because his pomposity made for great comic relief. My second favorite line was when a French young lady speaks to him in French and he thinks: “Though he was aware that people born abroad could sometimes speak their native language, to hear this beautiful girl pour forth sentence after sonorous, unhesitating sentence, when he himself has suffered such torments over his French exercises, filled him with awe.” When I read that, I almost PIMP laughing.
The book doesn’t get 5 stars because the conflict was a bit silly but I can forgive the heroine because she was so young. Overall though, this a great read and I’m looking forward to read more by this author.
This is my second book by this author and I just loved it. Her books have been recently marketed as YA but like the last one, this is really a clean historical romance with a really great heroine (nice, loving, smart, hard worker) who is NOT a beauty but still shines because of her personality. Add to that the great setting (a ballet company touring Brazil in the 1910s), an interesting hero and an amazing cast of secondary characters and you get another gem by Ibbotson.
The ballet company was an integral part of the story so a lot of the action revolves around rehearsals, the dances, etc. I know nothing of ballet but I didn’t find it hard to follow along (Zozia, I was thinking of you while I was reading) even though there were a lot of French terms. :) Of course, it helped that the plots of the different ballets they danced were explained so the readers could understand what was going on.
While the heroine’s setting was the ballet company, the hero was Brazil’s. The untamed land, the exotic animals, the mix of cultures, the injustices, all were a reflection of the hero’s background and personality. Like every hero worth his salt, he’s the kind of man that every woman desires. One of my favorite lines in the whole book is the ballerina’s speculations of the hero’s prowess in bed: "a night with such a man and one could hardly manage three fouettés, let alone thirty-two..."
There were a bunch of minor villains, all doing their part to separate the hero and heroine. Of these, my favorite was the wannabe fiancé because his pomposity made for great comic relief. My second favorite line was when a French young lady speaks to him in French and he thinks: “Though he was aware that people born abroad could sometimes speak their native language, to hear this beautiful girl pour forth sentence after sonorous, unhesitating sentence, when he himself has suffered such torments over his French exercises, filled him with awe.” When I read that, I almost PIMP laughing.
The book doesn’t get 5 stars because the conflict was a bit silly but I can forgive the heroine because she was so young. Overall though, this a great read and I’m looking forward to read more by this author.
June 6, 2011
By far the worst Ibbotson book I've read to date. I'd give it 2.5/3 stars. I'm starting to notice a theme in her books- young, not traditionally attractive girl who is involved in some kind of performing art company catches the attention on an older, tall, dark, and handsome, brooding rich man. It usually takes me a while to get into her books, but this one took me unusually long. The story seemed rushed, and the transitions between the different storylines were awkward. I couldn't connect to any of the characters very much, and while I initially kind of pitied Harriet, she was so silly and pathetic to the point that it started to be annoying.
All that would usually be tolerable, but what really made me dislike the book was all the unnecessary sex in the book as well. I have to say, I was surprised- I expected Eva Ibbotson to be more conservative. I guess not. No one can accuse her of being outright crude, but I really didn't need to read about the 17 year-old girl constantly being "ruined" by a "not yet thirty" year old man, especially after he makes a big deal about how he's going to protect her reputation and wait for the proper time to marry her and whatnot. Then suddenly all that goes out the window. Completely unnecessary, not to mention hardly realistic. A disappointing book indeed.
All that would usually be tolerable, but what really made me dislike the book was all the unnecessary sex in the book as well. I have to say, I was surprised- I expected Eva Ibbotson to be more conservative. I guess not. No one can accuse her of being outright crude, but I really didn't need to read about the 17 year-old girl constantly being "ruined" by a "not yet thirty" year old man, especially after he makes a big deal about how he's going to protect her reputation and wait for the proper time to marry her and whatnot. Then suddenly all that goes out the window. Completely unnecessary, not to mention hardly realistic. A disappointing book indeed.
August 29, 2025
A sweet love story complete with intrigue, enjoyably comical moments and a satisfying ending where the baddies get their comeuppance. I've enjoyed many of Ibbotson's books (which I learned about from Jane Penderwick) but this is definitely my favorite.
December 7, 2019
Harriet is the daughter of the worst professor at Cambridge, a man who doesn't mind teaching her Latin, but won't even consider the possibility of her attending university. Her aunt, Louisa, keeps house for them and is the cheapest person ever, so were Harriet to hack them to pieces with an ax, no one would be surprised. fortunately, Harriet is offered the opportunity to join the corps of a ballet troupe headed up the Amazon for an extended stay among the insanely wealthy rubber barons of 1912.
It's a delightful book. Just as in A Countess Below Stairs, the heroine isn't brilliant at everything, but she is charming and kind. The hero is a good man, which we know because of his efforts to protect a native tribe (or two). Sure he's a colonial making a fortune, but he treats his workers well, and cares about their long-term interests (if not their land rights).
In addition, we are treated to the amusing characters of the ballet company, a buffoon of a suitor for Harriet, an entrancing young boy, a scheming Scarlett O'Hara type, and quite a lot of natural history. Fleas get their due, as does a coati.
The magic of the book is that Ibbotson tells an Edwardian love story in a way that mostly feels authentic and also progressive. Perhaps it's because when the author brings in a deus ex machina she proclaims it as such. Maybe it's because our leads are enjoying everything unabashedly. I don't know, what the magic is, but I bet you anything you like that Ibbotson had FUN writing this book.
Library copy.
It's a delightful book. Just as in A Countess Below Stairs, the heroine isn't brilliant at everything, but she is charming and kind. The hero is a good man, which we know because of his efforts to protect a native tribe (or two). Sure he's a colonial making a fortune, but he treats his workers well, and cares about their long-term interests (if not their land rights).
In addition, we are treated to the amusing characters of the ballet company, a buffoon of a suitor for Harriet, an entrancing young boy, a scheming Scarlett O'Hara type, and quite a lot of natural history. Fleas get their due, as does a coati.
The magic of the book is that Ibbotson tells an Edwardian love story in a way that mostly feels authentic and also progressive. Perhaps it's because when the author brings in a deus ex machina she proclaims it as such. Maybe it's because our leads are enjoying everything unabashedly. I don't know, what the magic is, but I bet you anything you like that Ibbotson had FUN writing this book.
Library copy.
April 9, 2015
You guys, this was so enjoyable! A girl in 1912 escapes from her extremely oppressive home and runs away to Brazil with a ballet troupe.
I can't imagine you're not already sold just from that description, but may I also mention the dashing hero, the amusing tricks played on the hideous unwanted fiance, the charmingly insane prima ballerina, and the astonishing series of ridiculous coincidences that drive the plot along.
You're welcome.
I can't imagine you're not already sold just from that description, but may I also mention the dashing hero, the amusing tricks played on the hideous unwanted fiance, the charmingly insane prima ballerina, and the astonishing series of ridiculous coincidences that drive the plot along.
You're welcome.
February 18, 2025
3-1/2 Stars
I enjoyed this YA book about a young girl, Harriet, escaping from her terrible home life to join a ballet company heading off to perform in the Amazon. Initially upon finishing the book, I felt there was some unevenness to the story but, after discussing it with the Cozy Reader Book Club, I found myself reassessing the lens through which I viewed the novel. Looking at it as a fairy tale or as a ballet come to life, the story resonated more strongly with me because of that. I do wish there had been more about life in a ballet company but it really serves as a backdrop for Harriet's love story.
I will definitely seek out more books by Eva Ibbotson because she has me intrigued.
I enjoyed this YA book about a young girl, Harriet, escaping from her terrible home life to join a ballet company heading off to perform in the Amazon. Initially upon finishing the book, I felt there was some unevenness to the story but, after discussing it with the Cozy Reader Book Club, I found myself reassessing the lens through which I viewed the novel. Looking at it as a fairy tale or as a ballet come to life, the story resonated more strongly with me because of that. I do wish there had been more about life in a ballet company but it really serves as a backdrop for Harriet's love story.
I will definitely seek out more books by Eva Ibbotson because she has me intrigued.
March 17, 2009
Well, I would have liked it so much better if Ibbotson could write one book that portrayed love with anything approaching a true understanding of it. In all her "adult" novels anyone in love inevitably has premarital relations, this being the only way that people truly in love can express themselves, of course. It frustrates me to no end, given that I like her characters and wish they could act in a dignified manner. It is the one thing that always keeps me from really being able to recommend these books to others.
June 22, 2023
Harriet lives in Cambridge with a mysoginistic and managing father and a penny-pinching aunt. Her only joy is dancing – indeed it is the only „frivolous” thing that is permitted by her father. She is an amateur dancer but has been trained by a Russian ballet master. It is at the ballet class that she catches the eye of the manager of a Russian ballet troupe, who invites her to go with them on tour. Harriet escapes her relatives and a dull, joyless and constraining life and joins the Russian ballet company which is going to the jungle: they are taking the ballet troupe to perform at the Opera House in Manaus. Brazil at the turn of the 20th century was a great opportunity for entrepeneurs, especially the rubber barons. The rich expatriates welcomed every performance at the Opera House, and the ballet company had a huge success.
Harriet is befriended by some of the ballet dancers and with time by the prima ballerina, the famous Simonova. The Chairman of the Opera House, an Englishman, is entranced by Harriet's naiveté and goodness. Of course there are misunderstandings both big and small, and further hardships for Harriet, during which the truly evil nature of her relatives comes to light. But this is a romance and in the end everything turns out well.
No one, from Simonova herself to the most bovine of the Russian girls, was deceived as to the reason for these outings —no one except (as Verney had intended) Harriet herself. Her humility made it impossible for her to conceive that she could seriously interest a man such as himself, and Rom was content to have it so.
Harriet is befriended by some of the ballet dancers and with time by the prima ballerina, the famous Simonova. The Chairman of the Opera House, an Englishman, is entranced by Harriet's naiveté and goodness. Of course there are misunderstandings both big and small, and further hardships for Harriet, during which the truly evil nature of her relatives comes to light. But this is a romance and in the end everything turns out well.
No one, from Simonova herself to the most bovine of the Russian girls, was deceived as to the reason for these outings —no one except (as Verney had intended) Harriet herself. Her humility made it impossible for her to conceive that she could seriously interest a man such as himself, and Rom was content to have it so.
August 31, 2023
This is a historical romance by Austrian-born, English author Eva Ibbotson, set in England and Brazil in the 1910s.
Harriet Morton is the daughter of a rather stuffy Cambridge professor, promised in marriage to an even more stuffy academic Edward Finch-Dutton who specialises in the study of fleas. Harriet takes up an opportunity to escape her father’s restrictive plans for her and joins a ballet company performing in Brazil in 1912. Here she meets the handsome and wealthy colonialist Rom and has a series of adventures, including reluctantly agreeing to dance her way out of a cake.
I found this a light-hearted adventure with a fairy-tale feel to it and a gentle humour. Unfortunately, I only realised after finishing that I had listened to the abridged audio-version, so I don’t feel entirely able to discuss plot flaws that others have raised. Sadly, nor do I feel inclined to go back and read the full version. It seemed a pleasant enough tale to me.
Harriet Morton is the daughter of a rather stuffy Cambridge professor, promised in marriage to an even more stuffy academic Edward Finch-Dutton who specialises in the study of fleas. Harriet takes up an opportunity to escape her father’s restrictive plans for her and joins a ballet company performing in Brazil in 1912. Here she meets the handsome and wealthy colonialist Rom and has a series of adventures, including reluctantly agreeing to dance her way out of a cake.
I found this a light-hearted adventure with a fairy-tale feel to it and a gentle humour. Unfortunately, I only realised after finishing that I had listened to the abridged audio-version, so I don’t feel entirely able to discuss plot flaws that others have raised. Sadly, nor do I feel inclined to go back and read the full version. It seemed a pleasant enough tale to me.
July 11, 2017
There were all Ibbotson's characteristic elements, which I like in her novels:
--> a nice, pure, good heroine (good like in fairy-tales), but Ruth from The Morning Gift had more life, was better created;
--> the Hero, a bit brooding, moody and with a big heart, but I loved more Marek from A Song for Summer;
--> a charming world which doesn't exist any more, (mostly) Russian ballerinas just before the IWW somewhere in Brazil, but I was much more interested in Vienna world from The Morning Gift (here my review);
--> this sorrow and longing for a changing world, this struggle with consequences of decisions of other people, but I was much more moved reading A Song for Summer and The Morning Gift;
--> her love for nature;
--> her love for classic music;
--> this mix of almost magic love story (like in fairy-tales) with brutal real world.
All these and other 'but's' decided about my rating. I see that she wrote "The Company of Swans" about ten years before the other two novels, so perhaps it is why I find the latter two much better. Probably, if I had read "The Company of Swans" first I would have liked it more. But still, I like The lyrical words. The lifelike setting. The heart wrenching -and- heartwarming flashes of time. like Linda beautifully wrote in her review.
--> a nice, pure, good heroine (good like in fairy-tales), but Ruth from The Morning Gift had more life, was better created;
--> the Hero, a bit brooding, moody and with a big heart, but I loved more Marek from A Song for Summer;
--> a charming world which doesn't exist any more, (mostly) Russian ballerinas just before the IWW somewhere in Brazil, but I was much more interested in Vienna world from The Morning Gift (here my review);
--> this sorrow and longing for a changing world, this struggle with consequences of decisions of other people, but I was much more moved reading A Song for Summer and The Morning Gift;
--> her love for nature;
--> her love for classic music;
--> this mix of almost magic love story (like in fairy-tales) with brutal real world.
All these and other 'but's' decided about my rating. I see that she wrote "The Company of Swans" about ten years before the other two novels, so perhaps it is why I find the latter two much better. Probably, if I had read "The Company of Swans" first I would have liked it more. But still, I like The lyrical words. The lifelike setting. The heart wrenching -and- heartwarming flashes of time. like Linda beautifully wrote in her review.
April 25, 2011
The plot was rather predictable, the love story (and the two characters it concerned) cloying to my inner cynic, and the other characters weren't particularly memorable but still interesting to read about. Harriet was too... too something to ever really be a sympathetic heroine in my eyes. Too good, perhaps? Sentimental? Asininely pleased at being a ruined woman? I don't know; I'm thinking it was probably a combination. Also, I would just like to say, there was not enough communication going on in the story. It really does help if you talk about things before jumping to conclusions. What a crazy idea, I know. (Yes, I'm looking at you Harriet and Rom.) But I did appreciate the chicken feather and what it signified. If only Romeo had had such common sense, indeed...
One more thing, I would have liked more about dancing since that is basically the reason I read this book. The descriptions of dance that were there were beautifully evocative and had my brain involuntarily humming Tchaikovsky. (Actually, as I neared the end, I had to pull out my Tchaikovsky CDs and listen for I had been put in the mood.)
One more thing, I would have liked more about dancing since that is basically the reason I read this book. The descriptions of dance that were there were beautifully evocative and had my brain involuntarily humming Tchaikovsky. (Actually, as I neared the end, I had to pull out my Tchaikovsky CDs and listen for I had been put in the mood.)
May 22, 2008
Anyway, my biggest issue with this book was the message I got from it. It practically said, "Life is sad and dull unless you're rebellious. Oh, and always remember, happiness comes from boys.
That's just my feelings, of course. I felt like her life began to revolve around the guy, and she was a bit obsessive.
So, yeah, I never really finished this book, just skimmed through - I'm pretty sure it will stay on the never-finished shelf forever.
That's just my feelings, of course. I felt like her life began to revolve around the guy, and she was a bit obsessive.
So, yeah, I never really finished this book, just skimmed through - I'm pretty sure it will stay on the never-finished shelf forever.
August 6, 2023
Loved this so much
December 16, 2025
discussed AT LENGTH at book club. still enjoyed it despite its many flaws, most notably (for me): the ickiness of the age gap relationship, the obsession with virginal purity as a symbol of good character, the fact that this author is obsessed with weight and needlessly points out the weight of random minor characters, and the fact that the main character was a little too perfect to be interesting.
did enjoy the setting, the writing style, some of the humour, some of the background characters (shout out Marie-Claude), and some elements of the ending.
did enjoy the setting, the writing style, some of the humour, some of the background characters (shout out Marie-Claude), and some elements of the ending.
June 25, 2021
I think sometimes Eva Ibbotson can be so perfect that you can't quite figure out how she can be better, and then she writes: "At which point there entered a deus ex machina.
It entered in an unexpected form: that of a lean, rangy and malodorous chicken." and you just realise that she can get better, and it's kind of blindingly brilliant how she does it, and just worship every inch of this glorious, glorious book.
A Company Of Swans is stunning. A whimsical, wild, romantic delight. Harriet lives a dry and ineffably dull existence in scholarly Cambridge, set to be married to a rather dry and ineffably dull man, and the only light in her world is her ballet classes. One day when she is offered a job with a touring company on its way to the Amazon, the light in her world seems to grow a little brighter. But her family refuses. It is not appropriate for her to go and so she shall not.
Will she go? Of course, for this is an Eva Ibbotson and such things were never in doubt. I loved the scenes of the dancers together for Ibbotson's eye for lived and real detail here is a marvellous thing. She makes it all burn with life and realism, and her ability with character is so, so on form here. En pointe, perhaps. Her description of the elderly women who fiercely chaperone Harriet and make sure nothing untoward happens are delightful, and I adored how she wrote the ballerinas. It's easy to slide into caricature, I think, but it's hard to make even the complex and challenging characters lovable and real. And yet Ibbotson does this because she's very, very good.
And then there's Rom! The mysterious hot hottie love interest! Proud, complicated and fiercely dashing, he is EXCELLENT, honestly there's a scene at the end which is literally the very definition of fabulous. In the pantheon of Ibbotson Hot Hotties, he is very near the top.
I was sent a copy of this in its new and rather beautiful packaging from Macmillan. My thanks to them for that, and my apologies that it took me so long to get round to (re)reading it.
It entered in an unexpected form: that of a lean, rangy and malodorous chicken." and you just realise that she can get better, and it's kind of blindingly brilliant how she does it, and just worship every inch of this glorious, glorious book.
A Company Of Swans is stunning. A whimsical, wild, romantic delight. Harriet lives a dry and ineffably dull existence in scholarly Cambridge, set to be married to a rather dry and ineffably dull man, and the only light in her world is her ballet classes. One day when she is offered a job with a touring company on its way to the Amazon, the light in her world seems to grow a little brighter. But her family refuses. It is not appropriate for her to go and so she shall not.
Will she go? Of course, for this is an Eva Ibbotson and such things were never in doubt. I loved the scenes of the dancers together for Ibbotson's eye for lived and real detail here is a marvellous thing. She makes it all burn with life and realism, and her ability with character is so, so on form here. En pointe, perhaps. Her description of the elderly women who fiercely chaperone Harriet and make sure nothing untoward happens are delightful, and I adored how she wrote the ballerinas. It's easy to slide into caricature, I think, but it's hard to make even the complex and challenging characters lovable and real. And yet Ibbotson does this because she's very, very good.
And then there's Rom! The mysterious hot hottie love interest! Proud, complicated and fiercely dashing, he is EXCELLENT, honestly there's a scene at the end which is literally the very definition of fabulous. In the pantheon of Ibbotson Hot Hotties, he is very near the top.
I was sent a copy of this in its new and rather beautiful packaging from Macmillan. My thanks to them for that, and my apologies that it took me so long to get round to (re)reading it.
October 5, 2024
Eva Ibbotson writes such marvelously absurd romances and I love how the bad guys always get thier just desserts. But it's ultimately the secondary characters, in this one Marie-Claude and little Henry, who steal the show. It does however have multiple elements that, while true to the time period, will be decried as problematic by modern audiences (personally I am not a fan of the age gap in this romance and deliberately thought of Rom as very young to be so successful).
July 14, 2011
The year is 1912 and though Harriet is the daughter of a widowed professor in England and is intelligent and sweet, her ballet lessons are about the most "exotic" or exciting thing she has ever been allowed to do in her young life. So when Dubrov, leader of a ballet company, comes to her little school to scout talent and deems Harriet worthy of inclusion in the chorus of his company, she is thrilled. But, her father would hardly allow such a thing to happen in England, let alone that Dubrov's company is traveling to the great city of Manus in South America to the glorious opera house there in order to bring some European art and culture to the rubber barons and their families. When Harriet runs away to join the company, she knows her life will be more vibrant than ever before; she will be doing what she loves and seeing a place exotic and beautiful. But when she meets the handsome, capable ex-pat Rom she begins to see her life unfolding in different direction, though she cannot quite believe he will return her love.
This is a very challenging book for me to write a review about because, on the whole, I loved reading it. Ibbotson creates vivid characters and settings; I really felt like I was in Manaus, and I thought she captured quite well the personalities and actions of the ballet company. Also, some of her word choices and phrases are just brilliant, so wise, so witty. A real treat! And yet, I had some serous qualms with certain plot points and some of the decisions of the characters. It just didn't ring true to me, and I couldn't quite cheer on the romance when I felt like it was off on a wrong footing, though at the same time I read giddily along knowing that somehow a happy ending would come about. I am not quite sure if Ibbotson and I just have a different worldview or if she was just not that good at plotting and resorted to some rather weak moments for her characters in order to move things along. In any case, I can't really say anything more without giving away plot points so I'll just leave it at that.
One note, though, is that while this is billed as YA book these days, one of my GR friends told me it was originally published as adult fiction. Of course, I realize that most YA books today are certainly a lot more "adult" in content than the "Little Women" and "Anne of Green Gables" books I read in my teens, but I guess I let the ballet and 1912 setting fool me on this as I was surprised at some of the adult situations in this book. For example, scenes of lovemaking are done in a very sweet way and not graphic, but the ultimate message is probably not one that conservative parents would want their children to read about and those readers looking for a "clean" read should go elsewhere.
If you don't mind spoilers and want to read a review that includes many of my "gripes" with this book, you can check out this excellent one by Rachael:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
This is a very challenging book for me to write a review about because, on the whole, I loved reading it. Ibbotson creates vivid characters and settings; I really felt like I was in Manaus, and I thought she captured quite well the personalities and actions of the ballet company. Also, some of her word choices and phrases are just brilliant, so wise, so witty. A real treat! And yet, I had some serous qualms with certain plot points and some of the decisions of the characters. It just didn't ring true to me, and I couldn't quite cheer on the romance when I felt like it was off on a wrong footing, though at the same time I read giddily along knowing that somehow a happy ending would come about. I am not quite sure if Ibbotson and I just have a different worldview or if she was just not that good at plotting and resorted to some rather weak moments for her characters in order to move things along. In any case, I can't really say anything more without giving away plot points so I'll just leave it at that.
One note, though, is that while this is billed as YA book these days, one of my GR friends told me it was originally published as adult fiction. Of course, I realize that most YA books today are certainly a lot more "adult" in content than the "Little Women" and "Anne of Green Gables" books I read in my teens, but I guess I let the ballet and 1912 setting fool me on this as I was surprised at some of the adult situations in this book. For example, scenes of lovemaking are done in a very sweet way and not graphic, but the ultimate message is probably not one that conservative parents would want their children to read about and those readers looking for a "clean" read should go elsewhere.
If you don't mind spoilers and want to read a review that includes many of my "gripes" with this book, you can check out this excellent one by Rachael:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
March 24, 2008
Once again Ibbotson shows how apt she is at expressing just how her character is feeling, in such a way that the reader sets the book down in her lap and sighs, "Yes. That is exactly how it feels."
When we first meet Harriet, it is indeed difficult to find an aspect of her life that is not dreary and isolated. Kept on an unbelievably tight rein by her scholar father and spinster aunt, her only outlet is the weekly ballet lessons that have somehow slipped under the radar. When a talent scout offers her the chance to join a touring ballet company on its way to Brazil, Harriet can't sit back and watch life pass her by once more. Escaping from her father, her insect-obsessed intended, and England in general, she sails to the Amazon and into another life.
In Manaus, Harriet finds friendship, hard work, inspiration, and Rom--the mysterious and wealthy expat who owns the Teatro Amazonas where the company performs. Ibbotson's novels are all about home. About finding it somewhere you least expected it, about returning to it again after you thought all was lost. Harriet is, without a doubt, the most beleaguered of all her heroines, and this tale is a particularly sweet one because it is about a young woman trying so hard to do the right thing and keep a grasp on happiness at the same time, and a man who is afraid to hold onto hope when it is offered him for what, he is certain, is the last time.
When we first meet Harriet, it is indeed difficult to find an aspect of her life that is not dreary and isolated. Kept on an unbelievably tight rein by her scholar father and spinster aunt, her only outlet is the weekly ballet lessons that have somehow slipped under the radar. When a talent scout offers her the chance to join a touring ballet company on its way to Brazil, Harriet can't sit back and watch life pass her by once more. Escaping from her father, her insect-obsessed intended, and England in general, she sails to the Amazon and into another life.
In Manaus, Harriet finds friendship, hard work, inspiration, and Rom--the mysterious and wealthy expat who owns the Teatro Amazonas where the company performs. Ibbotson's novels are all about home. About finding it somewhere you least expected it, about returning to it again after you thought all was lost. Harriet is, without a doubt, the most beleaguered of all her heroines, and this tale is a particularly sweet one because it is about a young woman trying so hard to do the right thing and keep a grasp on happiness at the same time, and a man who is afraid to hold onto hope when it is offered him for what, he is certain, is the last time.
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