I will admit without any shame that I laughed a loud and riotous laugh when I read your letter. That dreadful woman never spared an opportunity after her boy was born to gloat over me about how her family's name would be carried on by her many, many grandchildren, and how sorry she felt for me that I'd been burdened with nothing but daughters.
She underestimated me Prudie, for it was rather difficult but not impossible to find a match for dear Katherine who possessed the same surname. Mr Popplewell was rather impressed with my resourcefulness at the time, as he should have been.
Bless his heart. It was the anniversary of his passing this week, and I thought my heart might break again. It has been seven years, and yet the date makes his loss as fresh as if he'd taken his last breath just moments ago.
I do take comfort that his name lives on through my son in law, even if it is by bending the rules a bit, and even if I do not get to see my little Popplewells. Was the marriage worth losing a daughter to the wilds of America? I ask myself this question every day, Prudie, and I still have not decided my answer.
In any case, I did promise to tell you about The Paper Magician.
It was not the book I expected it to be, Prudie. The idea fascinated me--magic, and involving paper, no less! But you will be as surprised as I was to discover that Mr Holmberg's book involved very little in the way of both paper or magic.
In the story, a rather lovely and intelligent young woman named Ceony Twill (what a name!) apprentices under a magician (not a confidence man, as I initially suspected, but an actual magician) named Emery Thane. She does learn a few parlour tricks--how to animate a bird and a frog and a snowflake (all made of paper!)--but that was very much it. After an exciting start, the story devolved into a journey of the heart.
I do not speak metaphorically, Prudie. Ceony enters her master's heart, and is taken on a journey through his deepest and darkest thoughts and memories. It was completely unexpected, nonsensical, and took up a majority of the book.
I had expected the story to delve much deeper into...well...paper magic, obviously. That the author chose instead to explore the sudden and ill-founded love Ceony developed for her teacher by presenting a long and tedious series of flashbacks was quite disappointing.
There was so much potential here, Prudie. Perhaps I will take Mr Holmberg's ideas and set them to paper in a way that better pleases me. I am sure he'd not take kindly to being presented with fiction from a fanatic, so I will keep the words to myself. Though I would share them with you, Prude, should you wish it.
Yours,
Gertrude Popplewell
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