Patty Goes to College and All Hell Breaks Loose

Published:  1903

When Patty Went to College (Patty #1)

By: Jean Webster

Grosset and Dunlap

ISBN-13:  9781402162893

When Patty Went To College is Jean Webster's first novel, published in 1903.  It is a humourous look at life in an all girls college at the turn of the twentieth century.  Patty Wyatt, the protagonist of this story is a bright, fun loving, imperturbable girl who does not like to conform.  The book describes her many escapades on campus during her senior year at college.  Patty enjoys life on campus and uses her energies in playing pranks and for the entertainment of herself and her friends.  An intelligent girl, she uses creative methods to study only as much as she feels necessary.  Patty is, however, a believer in causes and a champion of the weak.  She goes out of her way to help a homesick freshman Olivia Copeland who believes she will be sent home when she fails four subjects in the examination.

The end of the book sees Patty reflecting on what her life after college might be like.  She plays hooky from chapel and meets a bishop.  In a chat with the Bishop, Patty realizes that being irresponsible and evasive at a young age could adversely affect her character as an adult and decides to try to be a more responsible person.

My Thoughts

     Patty Wyatt is still the same mischievous, somewhat lazy, inherently good girl and truly loyal friend in college as she was in her days at St. Ursula's boarding school.  This book was actually written before Just Patty and was Webster's first novel.  It is made up of a series of vignettes just as the other Patty book happens to be, chronicling a year in the life of Patty and her friends - with stories of all the mischief they get up to.  There are some particularly amusing stories in this one, such as the time Patty tries to put on tea for the other girls and botches the whole thing, trying to get everyone else to do everything for her clandestinely.  Or the one where Patty hosts an older English gentleman, Mr. Toddhunter, and goes out of her way to mess with his mind by acting very young for her age.  Possibly my favorite is when the head of the college receives a telegram for Patty that "Robert" is dead, thinking he's a brother or a lover possibly.  In reality, he's Patty's brother Thomas' dog whom everyone hates, as he was the terror of the family!  

     Some of the more serious stories include Patty trying to help a foreign scholarship student from Italy who's homesick, failing her classes and dreadfully lonely.  Olivia also happens to be extremely brilliant and it's up to Patty to set things right before Olivia is kicked out of school.  If only Patty can get the lonely, stern Miss Prescott to let her retake the Geometry examinations.  I guess the story at the end of the book with Patty playing hooky from church and being lectured by a Bishop that she happens upon can also be considered as serious.  To be honest though, it's the most jagged of the puzzle pieces that make up the stories in this book, as a whole.  It's too moralizing and preachy to really fit in with the others and it kind of feels like it was slapped in at the last minute to add some sort of lesson to the book and Patty's 'bad' behavior.  That said, it's like the Widow adopting Huck Finn and putting him in a suit.  There are good intentions behind it, but you can't put a wild thing in a box and expect it to stay there of it's own accord.  Overall, I did enjoy reading more about Patty and Priscilla (who ended up going to college with her friend), but it wasn't quite as good as Just Patty.  A great first novel just the same though, better than many I've read before.

VERDICT:  3.5/5  Stars

**No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book is now available mostly  in used bookstores, online, or maybe even at your local library.**

We Think Patty Means Well...

Published:  February 27th, 2009 (First Published in 1911)

Just Patty (Patty #2)

By: Jean Webster

Project Gutenberg

ASIN:  B001U3ZCSG

Patty and her two roommates from last year are back in school. And they're upset School administration is trying to break up their dream team

"It's a shame " says Priscilla.

"It's an outrage " says Conny.

"It's an insult " says Patty.

"To separate us now after we've been together three years --"

"And it isn't as though we were "awfully" bad last year. Lots of girls had more demerits."

"Only our badness was sort of conspicuous," Patty admitted.

"But we were "very" good the last three weeks," reminded Conny.

Don't worry, they'll work around it. And raise more heck this year than ever before. . .

Review

     Patty and her two best friends Conny and Priscilla are appalled when they find out they've been separated as roommates for their senior year at Saint Ursula's boarding school.  Patty will not let it stand and the girls come up with schemes to go back to rooming with one another.  The book follows Conny, Priscilla, Patty and their schoolmates (but mostly Patty) through their senior year.  It's a series of vignettes about friendship, mischief and growing up in the early 1900s.

     When I downloaded this for my Kindle (it's free on Amazon as part of Project Gutenberg), I had already read  Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy.  Jean Webster has a pretty sharp sense of humor and writes wonderfully relatable heroines, that put me in mind of L.M. Montgomery (only with some extra snarkiness, versus dreaminess) and her Anne series.  I thought about reading When Patty Goes to College first since it was written before this one, but decided to go in chronological order by the actual setting of the book.  I normally am not a huge fan of books told in short story/vignette form, but this one really was a pretty good book when it comes down to it.

     Patty is an absolute lightning rod for mischief and makes it a habit to deliberately misinterpret things that people say to her or instruct her to do - with mostly hilarious results.  The other two girls are in the mischief with her, but Patty is most definitely the ringleader!  There were some that were almost entirely humorous, like the incident where Patty and the girls strike for better/more equal treatment in Latin class, and the incident with one of the girls having a fake beau (boyfriend) to hurt another girl's feelings (Patty takes care of that one with some pretty funny antics).  But there were also stories like the one where Patty is stuck at school for Christmas and decides to help a lonely and out of place student who feels abandoned have a meaningful holiday.  Also, the incident with the prank where Patty accidentally encounters a real burglar and finds him a job when she goes trespassing on a grumpy, reclusive millionaire's property.  Patty always means well, even when she's trying to get around doing things that she should (like studying to make up an exam that she misses).

     Overall I was impressed with this book and felt like the overall tone to it avoided the malicious spirit that books centered around pranks and boarding schools tend to have on occasion (whether by accident or design, things do move in that direction quite often).  I am only sorry that Jean Webster died at such a young age, with so much potential to be a classic children's writer in the collective consciousness instead of nearly forgotten, as I feel she is in our present day.  Also interesting to note is that Jean Webster was Mark Twain's grandniece.  Who knows maybe his famous snark is some of the reason she manages mischief so admirably in her own novels!  I highly recommend this one, especially for fans of classic books along the lines of Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, or the Betsy-Tacy series.  My only real complaint is that I wish there were more to this book.  It felt far too short, especially with the story Webster chose to end on.

VERDICT:  4.5/5  Stars

**No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book is now available mostly  in used bookstores, online, or maybe even at your local library.**