The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins, Illustrated by William Steig

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.

3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.

4. Post it.

5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I'm spotlighting an older best seller that I've just started called Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins and Illustrated by William Stieg.  This book was originally released in 1946 and was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy in 1948.  

I had no idea it was actually based on a real novel until I just rewatched the hilarious movie for the umpteenth time.  Obviously, I had to get my hands on a copy (which actually is a well-loved edition from 1946, so I'll have to be very careful with it).  I figure, if the movie is so good the book should be better, right?  Seriously, if you like classic comedies or Cary Grant movies, you should check out the movie.  

Basically in the movie, the Blandings' decide to move from their cramped Midtown Manhattan apartment to a spacious farmhouse in the nearby Connecticut countryside from which Mr. Blandings can easily commute to his job as a well paid adman in the city.  Turns out, though, that the place they buy (and get ripped off on) should have been demolished a long time ago.  So Mr. Blandings goes from thinking he'll be living the good life in the country:

To having to start from scratch and build a completely new house on the site of house they just paid through the nose for and then had to pay some more to have knocked down.  Shenanigans and mishaps ensue as the Blandings' watch the price of their dream house skyrocket.

Book Beginning: [Description of the place they're going to buy.]

The sweet old farmhouse burrowed into the upward slope of the land so deeply that you could enter either its bottom or its middle floor at ground level.  Its window trim was delicate and the lights in its sash were bubbly amethyst.  Its rooftree seemed to sway a little against the sky, and the massive chimney that rose out of it tilted a fraction to the south. Where the white paint was flecking off on the siding, there showed beneath it the faint blush of what must once have been a rich dense red.

56: [Getting lost on the way to their new house.]

"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Blandings, with the correctness of a Prussian in a conquered city.  Mr. Blandings, who, in his agony, had heard no word of the new directions, mumbled feebly and soon found himself again in Shrunks Mills, where his previous voyager, now leaning against a hardware-store window, regarded him with obvious relish.