Olivia by O. Douglas ~ 1912. Original title: Olivia in India: The Adventures of a Chota Miss Sahib. This edition: Nelson, 1950. Hardcover. 281 pages.
Provenance: Shepherd Books, Victoria B.C., September 2013.
My rating: 7/10
The first published work by Anna Buchan, written under her pen name O. Douglas.
This slight epistolary novel is based on Anna’s own 1907 voyage to India to visit her younger brother William; the characters “Olivia” and “Boggley” are obviously very lightly veiled depictions of Anna and William, and there is even a reference or two to another brother, “John”, who is a highly regarded novelist. John Buchan – of The Thirty-Nine Steps fame – was of course a very real person, and though “Olivia” throughout refers to her family name as “Douglas”, we can’t help but draw the simple conclusion that this is mostly autobiography, presented as fiction.
India in the years of the Raj has been so often and thoroughly documented both in fact and fiction that it exists in our readerly imaginations as a defined time and place with expected characters, settings and situations. Olivia does nothing to further illuminate any of this, merely laying down another layer of sepia-tinted varnish on an already-finished picture.
I found the book enjoyable enough in a mild way; in common with all of the author’s other novels the people are very believable, being a mixture of good and not so good, and the situations are realistically described. It differs from most of O Douglas’s later novels which have a traditional plot structure in that in this one nothing really happens, aside from the expected incidents of domestic adventure and foreign travel.
Olivia journeys about, sightseeing and marking time, all the while writing to an unnamed correspondent back home, whom we are able to identify early on as a person of potentially romantic interest. The nearest thing to a climax occurs at the very end of the book, when the correspondent is given a name, and Olivia commits herself so far as to accept his apparent proposal of an enlargement and formalization of their “friendship” when she returns to England.
Though it sounds as if I were damning this quiet book with faint praise, it wasn’t actually all that bad. The scenes throughout are engagingly described and occasional vignettes stand out, as when Olivia sees the Himalayas for the first time, after a less-than-comfortable train journey.
Here is a snippet from that journey, with these pages being representative of the style of narrative of the whole. (Click on image to enlarge.)
And there are enough references to the political situation and dreadful things going on all about – the poverty of much of the native population and certain of the lower class Europeans and Eurasians, the constant occurrence of sudden death from misadventure and virulent tropical diseases, the occasional “throwing of bombs” by radical demonstrators – to keep the tone from being at all saccharine.
Olivia herself has a rather snobbish attitude to anyone not of her class, race and religion – these being upper, Scottish, and Presbyterian – but she does recognize this tendency in herself and occasionally puts herself out to overcome her prejudices, though to the end of her travels she remains fastidiously suspicious of the natives of the country.
Very much a first book, but, to be fair, quite a good one. It held my interest throughout, though I am sure most of it will fade away quite quickly to join the rest of the era’s Anglo-Indian accounts of chirpy young Great Britain-ites off to visit the exotic Colonial Outposts, before it all fell apart.
Leaves & Pages 
I have this edition too, and it was the first of her books I read. Nice light reading, and amusing tone and a window into a time and place. I enjoy her books, but expect nothing profound. And that’s okay.
Very much okay! And marvelous for scene setting; Anna Buchan/O. Douglas was wonderful for depicting time and place and people so very clearly.
I love this one. I don’t know if it’s the epistolary style or the Raj setting but it appeals to so many of my preferences as a reader and has none of the elements that irritate me so much in some of Douglas’ later books. It’s certainly not her best but it’s a delightful first effort and, to me, much more enjoyable than some of her other early efforts (The Setons, Penny Plain and Pink Sugar come to mind).
No, I wouldn’t put this among her best, but even her “second string” is pleasant reading, isn’t it? 🙂
I’ll look for it. I’ve read The House that is our Own and I enjoyed it very much, although not without a few eye rolls here and there.
Oh, I know what you mean! But the occasional lapses are forgivable, for the quiet pleasure her stories generally give.
I do rather like the sound of this. I read my first O Douglas earlier this year and really enjoyed it.
I have found O. Douglas to be quietly addictive…she definitely doesn’t do “high drama” but her writing has a pleasingly engaging quality which refreshes one, I find.
[…] “minister’s child”, this early novel – only her second, after 1912’s Olivia in India – is her tribute to her beloved father, and is strongly autobiographical in its most […]