BETSY AND THE GREAT WORLD

To a reader of the first eight books in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series, the start of this one is disorienting. Suddenly four years have passed since we last left our heroine, her sister Julia is married, Tacy is married and pregnant, the Ray family has moved from Deep Valley to Minneapolis, Betsy and Joe are estranged (Joe has won a scholarship to Harvard and Betsy is dating another man), and Betsy’s college experience has been less than successful—marred by a bout of appendicitis and a long convalescence in California, her customary lack of interest in math and science, and a hectic, frivolous social life. Luckily, she has still been writing, publishing some successful stories, and when she decides she wants to drop out of school, her father generously agrees to send her on an educational trip abroad instead. Even for my adult self, this rapid change in circumstances is enough to prompt a “Wha-?” or two (I kept wishing Lovelace hadn’t skipped the college years entirely, because how fun would it be to read about those madcap 1900s sorority adventures at the U?), so you can imagine what a shock it was to my younger mind; I think I only broached this book a few times despite being such a great fan of the preceding volumes.

So Betsy’s on board a ship headed for Europe in January 1914. Anyone who knows anything about twentieth-century history will greet that revelation with an “Uh-oh,” but as a kid I was mostly oblivious to the shadow that rapidly approaching war casts on the book. And there is much to distract from it: the amazing glamour of the transatlantic crossing (staterooms, steamer chairs, mid-morning bouillon, a handsome purser, the Captain’s Ball!); exotic stops in the Azores, the Madeira islands, Gibraltar, and Algiers; living in Munich; being courted by an Italian in Venice; sojourns in Paris and London. Betsy’s personal journey is equally impressive; she’s traveling basically independently (although she has enough contacts and chaperones, mainly family friends, to be proper and makes additional friends along the way), and overcomes homesickness, loneliness, language barriers, and cultural differences, as well as growing as a writer. But rereading it now, I realized that this book is first and foremost a bittersweet valediction for a way of traveling that no longer exists (the world seemed so much bigger then!) and a bygone golden age of Europe about to be shattered by two world wars. (You can’t help wondering what happened to all the friends Betsy made in Germany and the young men at her London boarding house who so eagerly enlist when war breaks out. The fact that Betsy is still in England when war is declared is particularly fascinating, as Lovelace describes the Americans scrambling to get back home with a foreboding urgency Betsy doesn’t fully comprehend.) Even to Lovelace’s 1952 readers, I’m guessing that Betsy’s adventures seemed adorably quaint, tinged with the glow of nostalgia. This book is unabashedly romantic, and not just because it ends with one of the sweetest reconciliations in literature, in the form of the following message: “BETSY. THE GREAT WAR IS ON BUT I HOPE OURS IS OVER. PLEASE COME HOME. JOE.” It should be no surprise that the next book is called Betsy’s Wedding.