Miss Buncle's Book

Original review from emeraldcitybookreview.blogspot.com

In the early 20th century, Scottish novelist D.E. Stevenson produced a steady flow of popular light fiction. Several of these novels are now back in print, including the trio about “Miss Buncle,” thanks to Persephone Books in the UK and Sourcebooks in the US. When I read the premise of Miss Buncle's Book, it sounded irresistible: what happens when a dowdy spinster in a small English village writes a pseudonymous novel about her neighbors?

Well, Miss Buncle's Book did not disappoint. After a bit of a slow start spent maundering about the village bakery, we meet Barbara Buncle and learn about her book. This “Chronicle of an English Village” has been written in all naive simplicity in the hopes of earning a few pounds, and is devastatingly accurate in its observations because Miss Buncle “has no imagination at all.” The publisher she submits her manuscript to recognizes that it will sell like mad, and although he is surprised when the author “John Smith” turns out to be a rather unassuming lady, and that “his” witty satire is the product of a supremely innocent mind, he signs her up on the spot.

Of course, the very thinly disguised residents of the village begin to recognize themselves when the book becomes a bestseller, and work their way into various ridiculous complications according to their natures. They even start to fulfill some of the destinies that Miss Buncle (belying her own self-declared lack of imagination) has created for them.

I believe this is why Miss Buncle's Book has lasting appeal: it gives form to the truth that without imagination, without the stories we tell ourselves, there would be no movement and no development; life would come to a standstill. The imagination comes as an unwelcome disruption for those who prefer to live life as an endlessly recurring sameness, but if we follow its song it may lead us around the corner into an unexpected future.