Half the fun of the book is the series of digressions through which White embellishes his characters, making them more than representative of their types but endearing nonetheless. The humor emerges naturally from White's gently mocking tone: rather than lecturing readers about their preconceptions, he simply demonstrates how ridiculous they all are - which is probably more effective. This is very nearly made explicit once or twice in conversations between Maria - who tries her hand at colonial rule - and the Professor. White is clearly trying to say something about his country, and his countrymen, in the waning days of the British Empire.

Over the course of the book, we are also introduced to a goodhearted cook, an overzealous officer of the law, and a dog who sees his human as a pet - all of whom become embroiled in the farrago as it reaches fever pitch. They are thankfully to be outsmarted not just by Maria but by her friend, the Professor, the only one who seems to want nothing from the little people at all - except he will keep being distracted. Brown, want to find and sell the 'minnikins' for profit. Her guardians, the villainous vicar and Mrs. His protagonist, Maria, wants to be a colonial explorer, and in such guise she discovers a leftover colony of Gulliver's kidnapped Lilliputians. Satire leeches out of the text from the start, and the one thing that quickly becomes apparent is how much White has it in for everyone he is every bit the malcontent as the more famous Roald Dahl, but without the vicious streak.įortunately, most of his characters are malcontents, too, and half of them are charming ones.

Go this route he did, though, making his book sound more like a stately, Jane Austen-era garden folly and less like the series of comic scrapes, murderous guardians, savagely funny digs at the British class system and reflection on the evils of colonialism that it is. White - at this point, known primarily for a book with an extremely literal title, The Sword in the Stone - chose to go this route. Looking back on the book, it's not that hard to interpret, so it's a bit of a mystery why T.H. Mistress Masham's Repose is the slightly off-putting title of a slightly askew book, choosing to highlight its most important setting rather than its characters, any aspect of its plot, or its unusual tone.

Mistress Masham's Repose by T.H. White