For my previous gushing and introduction to the Betsy-Tacy series, go here: Betsy-Tacy, Heaven to Betsy.
Betsy in Spite of Herself brings us back to the world of Deep Valley, Minnesota, with Betsy Ray about to begin her sophomore year of high school. All the familiar and beloved elements are here: picnics on the Big Hill with Tacy and cocoa made over a smokey fire, singing around the piano with the Crowd, the romantic conquests of Betsy’s opera-singing sister Julia, the warm and loving Ray household. Yet Betsy isn’t entirely happy or at ease. She admit to Tacy:
“I wish I could be different, suddenly. I wish I could change overnight. Walk into the high school tomorrow just utterly different, so that the boys would be struck dumb…”
I don’t remember wishing I could turn myself into a mysterious, fascinating “sirenlike woman of the world” as Betsy does, but reading those lines does fill me with a familiar ache. I suspect a lot of us experience something like that: a yearning to be something different. I distinctly remember certain moments in my own high school and college years when I would look at some of the other girls and envy their self-possession. They just seemed to know who they were, and be confident in that person. I wanted to be like that. Not because they were popular with boys, but because they were cool. And although I was generally happy with my life, I wished I could have that same aura. I wanted to be more than just one of the sea of generically nice and presentable girls. So even now, after I have consciously changed myself a bit (and gained confidence in who I am) I can understand Betsy’s situation.
Betsy finds her answer when she is invited to spend the Christmas holiday in Milwaukee with her friend Tib Muller (readers of the younger Betsy-Tacy books will remember this the dainty and fearless little blonde girl who joined Betsy and Tacy in their childhood adventures, before she moved away from Deep Valley). The Milwaukee we see through Betsy’s eyes is a romantic city, with the large population of German families giving it a fascinating foreign feel. She and Tib spend a memorable all-nighter ringing in 1908, feasting on butterbrot, cheese, pickles, cake and coffee in Tib’s room, and plotting the year ahead. Betsy determines to transform herself and become Dramatic and Mysterious. It’s one of my favorite scenes, mixing the ridiculousness of the proposal with the familiar and sincere desire that’s beneath it. Ambitious Betsy douses herself with an exotic new perfume and declares she’s going to start wearing green because women of the type she wants to be “always match their eyes in clothes and jewels.”
“Your eyes are hazel,” Tib objected. “And blue is your best color, Betsy. Always has been.”
“Blue!” scoffed Betsy. “It’s namby pamby, And there’s lots of of green in my eyes. Green for jealousy,” she cried in a thrilling voice, resuming her stroll around the room.
“Whom are you jealous of?”
“Oh nobody! I just like the sound of it.”
When Betsy returns to Deep Valley, she puts her plan into action and her new airs win her desirable attention of Phil Brandish: a rich, handsome, auto-obsessed Junior. Betsy (or Betsye, as she takes to calling herself) is thrilled. She finally has a boy head-over-heels for her! She is radiant and triumphant, even if there’s a rankling suspicion in the back of her mind that she might not actually care for Phil as much as he does for her.
But the dazzling new Dramatic and Mysterious Betsye Ray persona requires a lot more effort than the normal Betsy Ray. She slaves over her appearance and stifles many of her own natural behaviors, fearing that Phil wouldn’t care for her “with her hair uncurled or when she was having a riotously good time.” But although Betsy can refuse to join the Girls Debating Club and resist singing her traditional yowling “Cat Duet” with Tacy at the class Rhetoricals, she cannot say no when she is invited to participate in the annual essay contest (once again competing against the handsome but proud Joe Willard).
Eventually, Betsy has to decide what she really values in her life and to deal with the consequences of trying to hard to be something she’s not. Not just the consequences to herself, but to the people around her, including Phil.
But what I appreciate about Betsy’s experience is that it doesn’t end there. Betsy’s heartache and struggles feel real to me, and I cheer when she is true to herself and recognizes her own mistakes. But it’s not as simple as that. It’s not just about learning to be true to yourself. When Betsy discussed the matter with her sister, Julia agrees that “each one of us has to be true to the deepest thing that is in him” but also points out that the experience has also done Betsy good:
“Don’t be scornful of ‘la de da’, Bettina. You may want to use it sometime with someone you really like.”
“But then,” cried Betsy, “surely I wouldn’t have to use it! Not with someone who was my own kind!”
“Oh… wouldn’t you?” asked Julia, and smiled inscrutably.
I think about that conversation a lot, every time I re-read this book. Is Julia right that sometimes you need a little ‘la de da’ even with a kindred spirit? In our dealings with others, even those we love best, do we show ourselves truly and openly. How do you balance being true to yourself with the comfort of those around you?
I think the best books are those that make you think, and don’t just stuff a single “right answer” down your throat. Of all the Betsy books, I think this one raises some of the most interesting questions.
What about you folks. Do you think you do need a little ‘la de da’ even with a kindred spirit? Did you ever try to make yourself over into someone ‘different’?
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