The Thorogood Family, by R.M. Ballantyne.
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Although the book is written with Ballantyne's usual great skill in
descriptive passages, the actual plan of the book is most unusual for
him. In Chapter 1 he describes a young family, then describes the
exploits of some of the boys of the family, now grown-up, in Chapters 2,
3, 4 and 5. But in Chapter 5 there is introduced a story about a
schoolboy who is nothing to do with the Thorogoods, though it is quite a
good story, parts of it reminding one of "Martin Rattler," and his days
at school. In Chapter 6 we are back to one of the Thorogood boys, who
is a missionary in London, working among the poor. The final chapter
also contains a long story about a third party, and ends with most of
the family emigrating to the Rockies in North America. Here again the
enwrapped short story is a good read.
We must remember that in Ballantyne's usual style there are often two
stories in some way running parallel with each other. In this case
there are no less than six, and two of those enwrap a further story. It
is really quite unusual for Ballantyne to write in such a convoluted
manner.
But be not afraid. The stories are very short. Ballantyne normally
writes with each of his chapters nearly of the same length, but here we
have 7, 6, 7, 8, 23, 9, 36 pages in the seven chapters, and it consists
of at least ten exciting episodes. It is worth a read.
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