When I think of the Little House series, I think about contentment, family, and happy times. Cozy dinners, lively music, loving hugs … it’s all part of the overall mood, isn’t it?
Then there’s By the Shores of Silver Lake.
The book certainly contains many scenes that evoke familial tranquility. The depiction of the New Year’s Day dinner in the Boasts’ tiny shanty is one of my favorites in the entire series. So is the image of Laura and Carrie sliding on the moonpath. But other than that? Silver Lake is dark.
Attempted murder. Hate crimes. Devastating illness. Death. Swearing. Theft. Embezzlement. Lying to the government. Drunken violence. It’s all in there.
Not that that’s a bad thing. In fact, my latest reread of By the Shores of Silver Lake garnered me a new appreciation for the book’s complexities. It truly is a transitional book. I guess I just never realized how transitional.
What say you? Is Silver Lake as dark as it seems to me? Am I missing darkness in the other books?
I agree. When I was younger, it was my least favorite book over all. I liked the scenes you depicted and the train ride, etc., but as you said, the general mood was “dark” and didn’t leave me feeling as the other books had. Now I appreciate it more as it seems more unvarnished than the others and therefore more accurate, in a sense. And there are so many different things to contemplate further now that I understand them better. For example, Ma does not want Laura associating with Lena, which I thought was terrible when I was younger. I thought Ma was taking away one of Laura’s few friends in a place where there were no other options of friendship and with whom Laura had enjoyed doing exciting things (ie riding horses). But I now see how careful Ma was to raise her girls how she believed was the best way for them, even in rough new country. I also can see the difference in the times better than I could when I was Laura’s age (in the book), instead of putting myself in her place and wondering why Ma was making such a fuss over things that wouldn’t even be given a second thought today.
It’s interesting to me now to read how deeply she did set that dark mood with just the slightest hint of that darkness. Some of the writing is so very subtle compared to how it could’ve been written and she left her readers quite a few little paths to follow, yet left them (us) to follow them on our own.
I see this in the other books as well, now to a degree. As in Little House on the Prairie when Laura,Mary, and Pa are first coming down with malaria and she writes, “Then Ma and Pa looked a long time at each other…” To me that sentence says more clearly all the things they could’ve been thinking/feeling than if she had written them word for word. That’s somewhat off-subject, but it is just another example that shows the complexity of her simple stories.
I’m glad now that By the Shores of Silver Lake is rather dark. It shows that the settling of this country wasn’t just a Grand Adventure. It was dangerous at times and hard work always and we shouldn’t forget that. It also makes more telling the family creed of staying cheerful and never giving up. That would be simple if life were always easy, but they did it in spite of the lack of ease when need be and therefore more admirable.
Wow. Silver Lake has always been one of my very favorite Little House books for just the opposite reason.
I find Plum Creek to be depressing. Oh, it doesn’t seem like it is at first… but once you know what happens, isn’t it dreadfully sad? The entire book is all about “when we get the wheat crop… when we get the wheat crop…” and you know the whole time, as the theme is repeated over and over, as the family looks forward to the wonderful things that are going to happen for them “when we get the wheat crop” — you know that they aren’t going to get their wheat crop. You know the devastation caused by the grasshoppers. You know all their hopes and dreams are in vain. That they’ll be shattered.
Silver Lake certainly starts out dark and depressing, what with the sick family, Mary’s blindness, Jack’s death… but we’re still in Walnut Grove. Once they get on that train heading west, all that hope is back. They have something to look forward to. For Silver Lake is all about “when we get our homestead… when we get our homestead…” and by golly, THIS is a hope and a dream that was indeed fulfilled.
Yes, there are some “bad things” in the book — but they aren’t happening to the family. They surround the family… Pa goes out in it… we’re aware that danger and sorrow is out there — but that only adds to the safe comfortable happy feeling in the house.
That long lovely beautiful winter all alone in the Surveyors’ House… with just them most of the time… then joined by such a happy jolly couple as the Boasts… the “church meeting” with their beloved Rev. Alden. The singing, the dancing, the laughing, the merriness. The beautiful weather despite it being winter which gave no indication of what they were to face the next year.
It’s just all so beautiful, so lovely, so happy that I wish time could freeze during that fabulous winter in the Surveyors House. And then spring comes, and Pa beats all the odds and gets his homestead — and we’re overjoyed to see our dear Mr. Edwards drop into the story again, even if only briefly.
I just see Silver Lake as such a HAPPY book overall, especially after the devastation of Plum Creek. And that is why I love it so much!
You are right, too. There are some wonderful scenes and experiences in By the Shores of Silver Lake. I guess I didn’t express that strongly enough. And I was trying to convey the differences I had personally in reading them at different ages. What I felt was dark when I was young has been, if not less dark, then more in depth. I think that Laura understood more of what was going on outside the family than she would’ve when she was younger. That’s how it feels to me now when I read it. All of the books reveal more as the reader matures, I think. I just find that to be fascinating!
I also find it rather heartbreaing to go from Little House in the Big Woods, where the family is established and living at their most comfortable, to Little House on the Prairie where we feel they could prosper as well. I’ve often wondered, “What if…?” And we don’t see again that same establishment (in a good place) or comfort again until just as Laura is getting ready to leave home. Of course, you can’t change any part of a story or of a history without having to change it all and the answer to “What if?” may not be what you really want after all.
In the end, I just plain love her books, and I enjoy each experience I read, even the sad and hard times. Regardless of historical purity (which I file separately and enjoy on another level), it’s a wondeful story and I truly enjoy immersing myself in it.
This reminds me of when I realized how many near-deaths there are in these lightened-up “children’s books” :
Ma slapping a bear
Laura falling off the bridge into the swollen stream
The runaway oxen nearly taking Ma and Carrie off the cliff into the creek
Malaria for the whole family (if not for outside help…)
Ma struck down by the log when building the cabin
Poison gas unconsciousness at the well bottom, and a risky rescue
Ma’s encounters with indians in the house (could have gone worse, she and Laura were indignant slappers!)
The local indians voting over a massacre uprising against the settlers
Laura and Mary escaping a cow herd on the flat rock
The Road Agent that wasn’t but could have been
The paymaster they briefly strung-up
The paymaster showdown with Pa (and Ma, heh)
Baby Grace lost amoung the prairie\slough
Laura and Carrie and the Silver Lake wolves
The Long Winter near-starvation
Almanzo’s and Cap’s expedition for the wheat (20 miles out on plain prairie and easy to get lost for the night, barely back before a blizzard)
The school children almost walking off into the open prairie blizzard
Tornados
Mrs. Masters recreating the scene from “Psycho”
Laura and Almanzo on the frozen commute from school
Laura’s birthing traumas
Laura’s and Almanzo’s house fire
Laura slapping the Head Indian right in front of his buddies
Little Rose playing colt-hurdle
Pa still teasing Ma about “the next best place” until she started eyeing the rifle
cheers
Wow Jim, that was quite a walk down mortality lane! Very thorough!