This is another of the "classic" romances written by Georgette Heyer before I was born [oops, published 1958 - 3 years after I was born, sorry!]. Her stories have been hit or miss for me - and part of it is the obscure language she uses, the jargon, slang maybe, that makes it next to impossible for me to follow what the heck the characters are talking about. The story was engaging enough but... what the heck are all those weird references?
Venetia is "on the shelf" at the grand old age of 25. She is the middle child - with an older brother, off at war, and a younger brother, Aubrey, with a hip deformity. Her father has recently died, and her mother has been out of the picture for years, after her parents - *gasp*- divorced when she was young. She is now the mistress of their family home, with 2 suitors in the area calling on her from time to time. One is Edward, who is a know-it-all, and the other who is younger than Venetia and thoroughly besotted.
Into Venetia's life comes Jasper - the rake from a nearby home who has been gone from the area for years - and by accident. Well, Aubrey's accident. He's closer to Jasper's home, so he goes there to recuperate, and Venetia visits him everyday. Jasper and Venetia develop a friendship. Venetia is outspoken, a blue-stocking, and apparently good looking as well (if you stick with the story long enough, it becomes clear) and Jasper decides perhaps this time he's in love.
It's shocking for Venetia to visit Jasper's home, and even more shocking for him to visit her home since there are no chaperones - even though they pretend he's come to visit Aubrey. Eventually, Jasper starts to declare himself to Venetia but gets thwarted. There are a couple of twists and turns - the older brother marries and sends his meek wife and odious mother-in-law to their family home; Venetia goes to London to get away from the odious mother-in-law; she learns the truth about her mother; and in the end, Jasper (on his 4th attempt) gets to ask Venetia to marry him, which is where the story ends.
It took me several days to wade through the story (I think I finished 2 audio books in the duration). OK, so perhaps her characters' manner of speaking is more authentic than Regencies written today, but if I can't understand it, how can I read it? I don't feel the least bit more educated because I've read books with weird slang and jargon.
It's an AAR Top 100 of 2007, so at least I get to check that off.
Showing posts with label Georgette Heyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgette Heyer. Show all posts
Monday, June 8, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Frederica by Georgette Heyer ****
Heyer's works, dating from 1920 - 1975, are considered classics in the Romance genre, and this one is one of 3 of her titles on the AAR Top 100 of 2007 list. I read one of them, Devil's Cub, which made me wonder what the fuss was about. But then I read another, The Corinthian, which changed my mind and I rated it 5 stars.
I consider this a 4-star read, or maybe 3.75. I did find myself laughing out loud at some of the antics. But the style of writing, and the jargon, are so convoluted that I found myself mostly lost in the prose. I have no clue if how she wrote (clause, after clause, after clause, separated by commas, making you lose the subject some 3 dozen words before) was supposed to be indicative of 19th century thinking, and I also have no clue where in the world all those odd words and phrases come from. I haven't seen any of them in any other of the historicals I've read. And the exclamation marks! After almost every sentence! It made my eyebrows rise! Time after time! Very tiring!
In this one, a young woman of 24 (Frederica Merriville) is the eldest of 5 children, and she was practically their mother and their father since their parents' deaths some years before. She is determined to give her younger sister Charis a London season because Charis is uncommonly beautiful. She sees herself as on the shelf, long in the tooth, over the hill, way past marriageable age. One brother, Harry, is of age and considered the younger children's guardian, but really he is still quite young and not at all responsible. The other 2 are schoolboys, Jessamy and Felix, who are constantly getting into scrapes.
Frederica asks Vernon, Marquis of Alverstoke, to help sponsor Charis into society as a very distant cousin who knew her father. Frederica is really a dear, and very funny and resourceful, and Vernon finds her amusing. Thinking to nettle his sisters with Charis's beauty when his nieces are so plain, he agrees by holding a ball for his nieces and inviting the Merriville sisters.
Really, Frederica gets into as many scrapes as Felix and Jessamy, and Vernon finds himself more and more attending to them - more and more amused - and realizes slowly that Frederica is the one woman he cannot live without. But it takes to the second to last page in the story for that realization to be said aloud, and even then it is said by one of his sisters!
While I did find lots of humor in the story, especially at first, and in the antics of the Merriville's mongrel ("Baluchistan hound" - definitaly Notable Pet!), the language and prose dropped it out of 5 star rating. The length - almost 400 pages - made slogging through the language even more tiresome. Well, if you're a Heyer fan, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, and you aren't doing an AAR Top 100 quest, I wouldn't be in a hurry to locate a copy to read.
4 stars.
I consider this a 4-star read, or maybe 3.75. I did find myself laughing out loud at some of the antics. But the style of writing, and the jargon, are so convoluted that I found myself mostly lost in the prose. I have no clue if how she wrote (clause, after clause, after clause, separated by commas, making you lose the subject some 3 dozen words before) was supposed to be indicative of 19th century thinking, and I also have no clue where in the world all those odd words and phrases come from. I haven't seen any of them in any other of the historicals I've read. And the exclamation marks! After almost every sentence! It made my eyebrows rise! Time after time! Very tiring!
In this one, a young woman of 24 (Frederica Merriville) is the eldest of 5 children, and she was practically their mother and their father since their parents' deaths some years before. She is determined to give her younger sister Charis a London season because Charis is uncommonly beautiful. She sees herself as on the shelf, long in the tooth, over the hill, way past marriageable age. One brother, Harry, is of age and considered the younger children's guardian, but really he is still quite young and not at all responsible. The other 2 are schoolboys, Jessamy and Felix, who are constantly getting into scrapes.
Frederica asks Vernon, Marquis of Alverstoke, to help sponsor Charis into society as a very distant cousin who knew her father. Frederica is really a dear, and very funny and resourceful, and Vernon finds her amusing. Thinking to nettle his sisters with Charis's beauty when his nieces are so plain, he agrees by holding a ball for his nieces and inviting the Merriville sisters.
Really, Frederica gets into as many scrapes as Felix and Jessamy, and Vernon finds himself more and more attending to them - more and more amused - and realizes slowly that Frederica is the one woman he cannot live without. But it takes to the second to last page in the story for that realization to be said aloud, and even then it is said by one of his sisters!
While I did find lots of humor in the story, especially at first, and in the antics of the Merriville's mongrel ("Baluchistan hound" - definitaly Notable Pet!), the language and prose dropped it out of 5 star rating. The length - almost 400 pages - made slogging through the language even more tiresome. Well, if you're a Heyer fan, you'll probably enjoy it. If not, and you aren't doing an AAR Top 100 quest, I wouldn't be in a hurry to locate a copy to read.
4 stars.
Friday, February 27, 2009
The Corinthian by Georgette Heyer *****
This is my second Heyer read - the first one was Devil's Cub, an AAR Top 100 book, and frankly I didn't like it much. I'm pleased to say I liked this one quite a lot - there was a lot of humor, and the intricacy of the plot was fun too.
A "Corinthian" is defined as a playboy or a man devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. In context of the book, it's associated with "dandy" really implying more about his manner of dress. The hero, Richard Wyndham, seems more the dandy and in no way a rake from what is said about him. Indeed, it's stated over and over that he seems not to be interested in women at all - if the book wasn't written in 1940 (it was), I would say the implications were quite the opposite of a rake. Oh, there is the mention of perhaps an opera singer in his past.
When pushed to the wall by his mother and sister to make an offer for a certain young woman whose family is in need of cash, he goes to the woman's home and interviews her. She's as cold as his brother-in-law has said, and is plain that it's a marriage of convenience - her convenience, that is. Later that evening, he leaves White's with the intention of a long walk to decide what to do, when a young woman dressed as a boy falls literally into his arms.
Penelope Creed is running away - she too is being forced to marry for money - her money, that is, by her aunt who wants her son (Pen's cousin) to have it. Her plan is to run back to her original home where she and a local boy, Piers, pledged themselves to each other 5 years ago when they were children. Pen has developed quite a good acting (aka lying) streak, although she does tell Richard the truth. He's quite taken with her plight (and he's also under the influence of quite a lot of brandy) and decides to take her under his protection and accompany her. He is introduced as her tutor, then as her uncle, then as her cousin, depending on the needs of the day, as they make their way to the small town where Piers lives.
Meanwhile, the almost-betrothed-to-Richard woman's family is robbed of a diamond necklace, in odd circumstances. It seems only family members knew where it was hidden. Upon meeting up with a thief on the way, Richard and Pen find themselves in possession of the jewels when the thief hides them in Pen's cloak to avoid detection.
The convoluted plot has a member of the strapped family staying with Piers, his friend from school, while working with the thieves who stole his mother's necklace - and Pen livens up the adventure with so many lies and stories of what happened when that even she gets confused. It seems Piers, in addition to having the school friend in residence, has been sneaking out to meet his secretly betrothed - which throws a wrench in Pen's original plan.
It was fun, and funny, and I'm glad I can now look forward to other Heyer stories! I picked this one up for a quarter at the local library sale mainly because I figured I could trade it on PBS, and now maybe I'll keep it! It isn't in a series, but it does fit my A To Z challenge.
A "Corinthian" is defined as a playboy or a man devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. In context of the book, it's associated with "dandy" really implying more about his manner of dress. The hero, Richard Wyndham, seems more the dandy and in no way a rake from what is said about him. Indeed, it's stated over and over that he seems not to be interested in women at all - if the book wasn't written in 1940 (it was), I would say the implications were quite the opposite of a rake. Oh, there is the mention of perhaps an opera singer in his past.
When pushed to the wall by his mother and sister to make an offer for a certain young woman whose family is in need of cash, he goes to the woman's home and interviews her. She's as cold as his brother-in-law has said, and is plain that it's a marriage of convenience - her convenience, that is. Later that evening, he leaves White's with the intention of a long walk to decide what to do, when a young woman dressed as a boy falls literally into his arms.
Penelope Creed is running away - she too is being forced to marry for money - her money, that is, by her aunt who wants her son (Pen's cousin) to have it. Her plan is to run back to her original home where she and a local boy, Piers, pledged themselves to each other 5 years ago when they were children. Pen has developed quite a good acting (aka lying) streak, although she does tell Richard the truth. He's quite taken with her plight (and he's also under the influence of quite a lot of brandy) and decides to take her under his protection and accompany her. He is introduced as her tutor, then as her uncle, then as her cousin, depending on the needs of the day, as they make their way to the small town where Piers lives.
Meanwhile, the almost-betrothed-to-Richard woman's family is robbed of a diamond necklace, in odd circumstances. It seems only family members knew where it was hidden. Upon meeting up with a thief on the way, Richard and Pen find themselves in possession of the jewels when the thief hides them in Pen's cloak to avoid detection.
The convoluted plot has a member of the strapped family staying with Piers, his friend from school, while working with the thieves who stole his mother's necklace - and Pen livens up the adventure with so many lies and stories of what happened when that even she gets confused. It seems Piers, in addition to having the school friend in residence, has been sneaking out to meet his secretly betrothed - which throws a wrench in Pen's original plan.
It was fun, and funny, and I'm glad I can now look forward to other Heyer stories! I picked this one up for a quarter at the local library sale mainly because I figured I could trade it on PBS, and now maybe I'll keep it! It isn't in a series, but it does fit my A To Z challenge.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer **
First I want to say that Georgette Heyer is reputed to be a pioneer in "modern" Romance novels, having established the genre of Regency romance, and that many authors credit her with being a model. I say "modern" because she wrote during the 20th century, so her work is "historical romance" as opposed to Jane Austen whose work was contemporary. This book is a sequel of sorts to These Old Shades, which is the story of Devil's Cub's hero's parents. Needless to say, her books are considered classics, and this one is on the AAR Top 100 for 2007 and has DIK status in an A review at AAR.
In fact the reviewer specifically says:
Devil's Cub was originally published in 1932. Ms. Heyer is credited with writing witty and well-researched stories, and indeed, I have no quarrel with her writing style even though I did find it sometimes difficult to keep up with the double, triple and even quadruple negatives used to make a point (how many negatives make a positive again?). Her books are being reprinted by HQN - and are apparently in big demand, as I ended up paying full price at a book store!
The Cub in question is Dominic, Marquis of Vidal, son of the Duke and Duchess of Avon. He's a rake, a rogue, in all ways a demanding, spoiled young man given to drink, loose women and duels that he wins by killing his fellow duelist, usually over cards or some other slight not worth someone's life. He has been wooing young Sophia Challoner - a pretty 18-year-old miss bent on making a good marriage with the Duke, in full support of her scheming mamma.
Sophia's just-older sister, Mary, is not as pretty but much more educated and wise in the ways of the world. Somehow - it wasn't clear to me how - Mary realizes that Dominic plans to ruin Sophia and never marry her, and she does her best to keep them apart.
Dominic fights another duel after a drunken game of dice, and his father orders him to leave England to avoid prosecution for this almost-murder (the fellow hadn't died, yet). Dominic sends a note to Sophia asking her to accompany him to France.
Now - I sorta got a little lost here. I wasn't following the plot point that he only intended to ruin Sophia. He did things which smacked of courting - meeting her on walks, taking her to the theater, sending her this note, calling her his love. If I wasn't privy to Mary's POV, I would have understood he was indeed courting Sophia. And I also got the idea that Sophia was interested, in spite of being told, again from Mary's POV, that Sophia didn't really love Dominic but just wanted to trick him into marriage. OK. So you gotta buy those 2 assumptions.
Mary intercepts the note, and hatches a plan to foil the lovers - she will meet Dominic in Sophia's place and tell him that she and Sophia planned only to make a fool of him, and she assumes he will be disgusted with Sophia and her and throw her out and forget about Sophia.
She dons a mask and meets him, he puts her in a coach and takes her to the coast where he discovers her plan. He is enraged and tries to strangle her (and this is supposed to be side-splittingly humorous?) and forces her onto the boat to cross the channel, figuring he'd as soon ruin Mary as Sophia. She is sea-sick the entire way - somehow I think one is supposed to realize he is taking care of her in a way out of character.
Once they reach France, she convinces him she was never in league with Sophia but only intended to thwart his ruin of her. Also she admits to herself she's actually been in love with him for weeks. Hello? When did that come about?? Stealing her sister's beau? I missed that little plot point all together.
He is suddenly overcome with what he has done and decides he must marry Mary to avoid her ruin, since it has become apparent to him she is indeed honorable and virginal and he would never ruin someone like her. Uh, he would ruin Sophia but not Mary? OK, I missed another plot point, once again, because I wasn't following the logic there.
Meanwhile we get to meet his mother, the heroine of the book These Old Shades. What an awful person she was. I truly disliked her the entire book. In her eyes, that scoundrel son really could do no wrong, everyone who said anything negative about him was deemed a liar, and she defended him way past what is normal even for mothers. Maybe someone else reading this found her to be funny, humorous, witty, whatever, but I found her to be a Stage Mother Supreme. The descriptions of his character were pretty clear to me - he was a murderer, a complete asshole when drinking, and held no regard for any woman except her - to a degree that was beyond Oedipal.
Ah, and there's Dominic's cousin Julianna, a school mate of Mary's, in love with a commoner, Frederick. What a twit she was. She was waaaay mean to Frederick and frankly didn't deserve him.
The rest of the story is everyone getting different accounts of Mary's abduction, and chasing around England and France to find Dominic and Mary and get their lives sorted out. Per the reviewer at AAR, this was "a love story that is as heart-achingly romantic as any I’ve ever come across" in which case I might recommend she keep reading. Not once did my heart ache - when Dominic theoretically "shows" his love for Mary the first time (ok, maybe the vomit scene was the first time) after he accidentally stabs her, I had to take the author's word on that because I did not Feel The Love. He does declare it later, but again I never once felt or saw the love bloom between the two - I only knew it because Heyer told me.
So (1) I did not feel the story was at all romantic and (2) I never felt moved to even smile, much less laugh. When I first finished, my inclination was to give it 3 stars, but now that I've written all this, it has slipped to 2 stars. Truly, I did not get out of this book what I want when I read. Mostly I was just annoyed at trying to figure out what was happening and why. And dang if there aren't 2 more by this same author in my AAR Top 100 Quest...
In fact the reviewer specifically says:
Quite honestly, romance simply doesn’t get any better than this.Uhm... Maybe she should have qualified that with "in [her] opinion" because romance does, often and usually, get a lot better in my opinion. Quite a lot better.
Devil's Cub was originally published in 1932. Ms. Heyer is credited with writing witty and well-researched stories, and indeed, I have no quarrel with her writing style even though I did find it sometimes difficult to keep up with the double, triple and even quadruple negatives used to make a point (how many negatives make a positive again?). Her books are being reprinted by HQN - and are apparently in big demand, as I ended up paying full price at a book store!
The Cub in question is Dominic, Marquis of Vidal, son of the Duke and Duchess of Avon. He's a rake, a rogue, in all ways a demanding, spoiled young man given to drink, loose women and duels that he wins by killing his fellow duelist, usually over cards or some other slight not worth someone's life. He has been wooing young Sophia Challoner - a pretty 18-year-old miss bent on making a good marriage with the Duke, in full support of her scheming mamma.
Sophia's just-older sister, Mary, is not as pretty but much more educated and wise in the ways of the world. Somehow - it wasn't clear to me how - Mary realizes that Dominic plans to ruin Sophia and never marry her, and she does her best to keep them apart.
Dominic fights another duel after a drunken game of dice, and his father orders him to leave England to avoid prosecution for this almost-murder (the fellow hadn't died, yet). Dominic sends a note to Sophia asking her to accompany him to France.
Now - I sorta got a little lost here. I wasn't following the plot point that he only intended to ruin Sophia. He did things which smacked of courting - meeting her on walks, taking her to the theater, sending her this note, calling her his love. If I wasn't privy to Mary's POV, I would have understood he was indeed courting Sophia. And I also got the idea that Sophia was interested, in spite of being told, again from Mary's POV, that Sophia didn't really love Dominic but just wanted to trick him into marriage. OK. So you gotta buy those 2 assumptions.
Mary intercepts the note, and hatches a plan to foil the lovers - she will meet Dominic in Sophia's place and tell him that she and Sophia planned only to make a fool of him, and she assumes he will be disgusted with Sophia and her and throw her out and forget about Sophia.
She dons a mask and meets him, he puts her in a coach and takes her to the coast where he discovers her plan. He is enraged and tries to strangle her (and this is supposed to be side-splittingly humorous?) and forces her onto the boat to cross the channel, figuring he'd as soon ruin Mary as Sophia. She is sea-sick the entire way - somehow I think one is supposed to realize he is taking care of her in a way out of character.
Once they reach France, she convinces him she was never in league with Sophia but only intended to thwart his ruin of her. Also she admits to herself she's actually been in love with him for weeks. Hello? When did that come about?? Stealing her sister's beau? I missed that little plot point all together.
He is suddenly overcome with what he has done and decides he must marry Mary to avoid her ruin, since it has become apparent to him she is indeed honorable and virginal and he would never ruin someone like her. Uh, he would ruin Sophia but not Mary? OK, I missed another plot point, once again, because I wasn't following the logic there.
Meanwhile we get to meet his mother, the heroine of the book These Old Shades. What an awful person she was. I truly disliked her the entire book. In her eyes, that scoundrel son really could do no wrong, everyone who said anything negative about him was deemed a liar, and she defended him way past what is normal even for mothers. Maybe someone else reading this found her to be funny, humorous, witty, whatever, but I found her to be a Stage Mother Supreme. The descriptions of his character were pretty clear to me - he was a murderer, a complete asshole when drinking, and held no regard for any woman except her - to a degree that was beyond Oedipal.
Ah, and there's Dominic's cousin Julianna, a school mate of Mary's, in love with a commoner, Frederick. What a twit she was. She was waaaay mean to Frederick and frankly didn't deserve him.
The rest of the story is everyone getting different accounts of Mary's abduction, and chasing around England and France to find Dominic and Mary and get their lives sorted out. Per the reviewer at AAR, this was "a love story that is as heart-achingly romantic as any I’ve ever come across" in which case I might recommend she keep reading. Not once did my heart ache - when Dominic theoretically "shows" his love for Mary the first time (ok, maybe the vomit scene was the first time) after he accidentally stabs her, I had to take the author's word on that because I did not Feel The Love. He does declare it later, but again I never once felt or saw the love bloom between the two - I only knew it because Heyer told me.
So (1) I did not feel the story was at all romantic and (2) I never felt moved to even smile, much less laugh. When I first finished, my inclination was to give it 3 stars, but now that I've written all this, it has slipped to 2 stars. Truly, I did not get out of this book what I want when I read. Mostly I was just annoyed at trying to figure out what was happening and why. And dang if there aren't 2 more by this same author in my AAR Top 100 Quest...
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