SBD: My Favorite Laura Kinsale Book

I just love great writing.

I haven't been reading much of anything these days, but I do keep opening up the copy of Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale that lives in my purse whenever I find myself sitting around waiting for something. (Hmm. Looking over my calendar, it would seem that I sit in waiting rooms waiting for various children to come out of appointments two to three hours a week. I guess I have been reading. Just one book, over and over, and not really from front to back.)

It's been weird, because I've been doing this while the whole Cassie Edwards THING has been going on. Read some pilfered passages online, bang my head on the desk, hop in the car, read some great passages in the waiting room. Quite the dichotomy, this romance genre.

Which Laura Kinsale is my favorite? Generally, the one I'm reading at that moment. Prince of Midnight: A swashbuckling masked hero with vertigo meets up with a young girl who needs him to act as her avenger. A swashbuckler with vertigo? LOVE IT. Midsummer's Moon: A hero who's desperately afraid of heights falls for an inventress who climbs to the top of roofs to examine weather vanes and who desperately wants to fly. LOVE IT. I could go on and on. But today it's all about Flowers from the Storm.

Forget for a sec that this is a Romance, with breasts and sex and dukes and stuff. How about just reading it as a book? This is why I love Laura Kinsale.

(Well, not her as a person or an online personna, just her as the creator of these books I love so well. Her as the crafter of a phrase. Cause I don't know her personally, so I can't say if I love her. There, now I've defined my fannish behavior appropriately, and can move on to the blogging.)

There are so many things that I love in this novel, but others have pointed them out before. The way the author demonstrates the hero's inability to understand language or to speak while incarcerated in an asylum after his stroke:

He wanted to say "don't go," and instead it emerged, "No...no."

She gave a little sigh and started to stand up; he realized she was leaving and shook his head violently. Don't! Stay here, don't leave yet, not now!

"No, no, no, no," was what he heard himself uttering, and cut it off, tilting his head back and yanking at the bonds in his wrath.

"Peasdon sethee! Clietcliet!" She put her forefinger up to her face, the tip just below her nose.

He gazed at her. It meant something, that gesture; he knew it meant something, but he couldn't think what....

"Weebwell, "she whispered. "Vreethin wilvee well."

Wilv well. Will well.
Vreething will well.
Everything will well.

He hadn't really comprehended it; it came after his mind seemed to sift down through the sounds, settling finally on an intuition.
But it was something, anyway. It was something to keep as she turned away and took the candle and the paper. One small glass ball to float when he was drowning; she thought everything would be all right, and he'd almost understood her when she said it.*

Readers have already spoken about how well Kinsale deconstructs language in this novel; she turns it almost into poetry at times. But that's not truly why I love the book.

There's setting a scene. The introduction of the Duke of Jervaulx on page one has been commented on before as well:

He liked radical politics and had a fondness for chocolate. Five years ago, the Honorable Miss Lacy-Grey had verifiably swooned on the occasion of his requesting her hand for a country dance--an example of that category of incidents which one's friends found endlessly amusing and became fond of recalling ad nauseam in their cups. The circulating quip had been that a marriage proposal would have crippled the girl for life, and that an offer of a baser sort killed her on the spot.

Since Christian lay now with his head pillowed in the smooth curve of her back, his fingers indolently sliding between her stocking and the skin just above a blue-and-yellow garter, he had to assume his friends had been slightly out in their predictions. She seemed perfectly alive to him.**

Maddy, the Quaker heroine also has a perfect introduction, bustling about in her small home where the parlor bell doesn't work, commenting to her father in mid tirade, "A duke can scarcely be supposed to care seriously for such matters--the square is above thy left hand--as must be perfectly clear when his integration has not been prepared for the past week."*** Gently done, we know her father is blind, she's easily offended but efficient, and that they are certainly not noblity.

The Duchess de Marly, I already wrote about in an earlier SBD post. I love how she's so cranky, so stubborn, and so respected by her wayward nephew, Christian. How Maddy believes that she will one day be just as cantankerous as the Duchess, and how we know that Christian will love her when she's mild or when she's fierce, just the same.

The speech at the Quaker meeting house at the end, others have written about. It's Christian's last chance to bring Maddy back to him and to his disordered state, to make him a better person and to convince her to leave behind her personal lie that she is nothing but a meek Quaker. When indeed she knows she can make him bow down to her. "The Devil's Gift."

But all of that is still not what makes this my favorite Kinsale book. (Although I admit to being particularly in awe of the introduction of Every Character. Durham with the dogs. Fane in his military oblivion. Gill in his wide hat. Eydie swooning on the stairs.)

What makes this my favorite Romance is the lack of kisses.

What makes this my favorite Romance is the drama of the sex when it shows up, and the lack of it.

Laura Kinsale manages to get down on paper the very essence of mute longing. Of a need to touch that is enormous. The tension is crafted so well, that by the time a sex scene finally shows up, the reader doesn't even need the full description. Just a view into the wanting is enough.

There isn't a passage I can pull out and point to -- there are bits and pieces scattered throughout the book. But I love when Jervaulx leans into her at the top of the stairs when the thunder has caused her to drop the candle. No kissing. No dialogue. Just him holding her and breathing into her hair. I love when Jervaulx can sleep in his own bed again only because he knows that Maddy is in the dressing room. I love when Jervaulx unbraids her hair the morning after their marriage. I love when Christian prays to god and she walks in the room to rescue him from himself.

All those bits, a glance over the table, a moment on the stairs, and it's Romance.

And good writing.



---------------
OK, OK. The sex is good too. Fine.


All quotes from the Avon Books reprint edition (with the mansion on the cover)
Flowers from the Storm, copyright 1992 Amanda Moor Jay
*pp. 61-62
**Prologue, page 1
***Chapter One, p. 7

SBD -- Reviews. Or, Plunge the Knife in Me NOW!

First off, don't forget to give me your advice here.

Second, I've really and truly HAD IT with the review whining. Completely.

Tara Marie was the most recent person to sound off on how idiotic and frustrating this spinning wheel is, in response to a not-very-annoying-RTB post. What was annoying about the RTB post was to watch the comments dissolve into "Woe is me"-dom.

Here, girls. Let me 'splain something to you. You are not your work. Your work is not you. OK?

If you are a lawyer and you lose a motion in court, your career is not over. And furthermore, the judge does NOT think you are a baby-murderer because your legal arguments did not hold sway on that day. You are not your work.

If you work an office job and you do a great job pulling together all the data you need, editing the report just so, and making the perfect presentation, this does NOT mean that you are a perfect person and that daisies live in anticipation of you walking past them. You may be a perfect shit at home to your husband or to your kids, but you may still be able to churn out the best damned report anyone has ever experienced. Your work is not you.

Here's a secret. Ready? People read books.

Oh!

And you know what else? Readers form opinions OF THE BOOKS, and then, God Forbid, they go on to tell their friends their opinions.

I know. This is shocking. If you are experiencing heart palpitations about this, then why don't you go for a bit of a lie-down? We'll fill you in on the details after you've recovered.

When a reader says that s/he did not like the book, it is NOT directed to the author, nor is it offered up as constructive criticism, in general. It's simply an opinion. If it hurts your feelings to read negativity with your name in it, then I advise you to follow Kate Rothwell's lead and use Monica Jackson's "Author Visualizations." They're quite funny. And apparently quite effective.

Here's where this continual confusion just burns me up. You made the decision to go after a publishing contract. You did. Yep. YOU wanted to share this book with the world. It's not as if this qualifies as an invitation for an all out assault, but good grief ladies, grow a spine, or some ovaries or both.

If you cannot quite deal with people honestly stating their opinions about your work, or if you cannot separate your psyche from your work, then please know that you HAVE an option. Write for yourself, for your friends, for your students and teachers. It can be very rewarding in and of itself.

But for god's sake, don't ask me to play a violin for you.

When I screw up in my job, not only does it hit the papers, but it also hits the front page, the internet, the grocery store, and the playground. (Even when I'm right but stating an unpopular position.) In some cases I've been reported to the District Attorney by people who did not like me, and they have invited that very interesting gentleman to investigate me. (Fortunately he has a well-developed sense of humor and well-grounded sense of reality versus hyperbole. He also has a very pleasant chuckle on the phone.)

Ever been threatened with investigation by a prosecutor for writing a plot which was thin, although the characters were engaging? Yeah. Thought not.

SBD - Multiple books

I've been looking over my blog and trying to figure out how to streamline the damned thing. I sorta make these promises to myself that I'll stop posting fourteen paragraph essays about some weird thing which happened in my political life. I keep writing about horses, but I don't really get along with a large sector of the horsie community, so that just starts up weird wars over things I'm not that upset about.

(Oh. But don't get me going on Rolkur. Oh, what the hell. Here. I think it's dangerous, painful, and disgusting looking, and this woman wrote about it so much better than I ever could, so go read it over there. Then you can come back and beat me up over here. And you're talking to a girl who rode a horse in draw reins--but never to this extreme. These are International Riders at the top of their classes.)

(Shouldn't have just posted those links--the crazies are coming, the crazies are coming.)

I keep posting long screeds about my son and his behavior and his schooling. (I have another meeting on Wednesday Afternoon! Oh, goodie!) I keep sorta meaning to get around to posting about books.

Monday is Smart Bitches Day, so named by the ever lovely Beth. We are supposed to write about something which gets us passionate in books or reading. (Lord. I spelled that "pationate" about four times, stared at it, erased it, and then typed it back in as pationate. I'm a goober.) I keep meaning to even write ONE thing about a book I've read, let alone a scheduled post on a topic of import to me within the larger sphere of books.

But that's kind of how I read. I'm all over the place. Which gets me (Ta! DA!) to my SBD topic: Reading more than one book at a time.

This seems to confuse those who do not partake of multiple books at once. I am often stopped by friends who are amazed that I read this way. To me, their amazement is mutual. Why are you amazed? Doesn't everyone read this way? I'm still shocked when I find people who are surprised that I read this way.

When I last totalled it up, I was reading I think seven books concurrently. I've finished Sorcery and Cecilia, so I guess that reduces the number, but then I added in a very over the top Romance my daughter found for me. Oh dear. We must work on her tastes a touch. So I guess I'm back to seven again.

But I'm not only interested in horses, in fact a lot of my friends still don't know that I keep up with breeders and with horses. I'm not only interested in local or national politics. Some days I research this, some days I dream about that, some days I shrug off stuff which would have been fascinating a few days ago. Some days I write and blog, some days I don't. But I'm always me in the middle of all of that. And that's why I have to read a bunch of books at once. Some days some books work, some days they don't.

When I totally fall into a book, forget it, that's the one I read all the time. I just went through a Sabrina Jeffries and Eloisa James glom which was like this. But normally I have a Romance (or two), and usually about four general fiction books going at the same time. I guess this is why I don't have a TBR pile. When it comes in the house, it's getting read. It's not set aside for later.

Do I get plots confused? No. Do I get characters confused? Generally, no. They belong to their plots, don't they? Do I forget their names? Hell, yeah. I enjoy names a great deal, but especially in Romances, the names don't stay with me if I'm reading a bunch together.

Two reading tendencies which come out in this scheme. First, I skim a lot. I read the back chapter first, so I can orient myself in the story, and sometimes if I've forgotten whether I liked the book or not, after a few days apart, I reread the last chapter again. It becomes my back cover blurb. Second, it takes a while for me to get to Did Not Finish status. If it's tapering off or I'm getting distracted, I set it aside. And I do that over and over again. Until one day, I pick up the book, read the last chapter, and say, "Nope. I'm not wasting my time with you anymore."

But if I fall into a book, look out. Bread, water, and book. All others get set aside.

So I guess I'm just going to have to leave the messy blog as it is. Is it a horse blog? (I'm a on a horse blog list somewhere. Oh, dear.) Is it a Romance Reader's blog? (Not judging my the number of books I talk about. Oh, dear.) Is it the annoying ramblings of a frustrated mother and politician. (That sounds just like a blog I don't want to read. I'd run screaming into the night if someone sent me a link to a Mommy Politician. Oh, dear.) But I'm all of them and none of them. Somewhere in here there's a point. Something about a generalized survey course giving you a fairly good overview of the complexities of the matter without delving deeply into the details of how or why.


(Is it possible to delve shallowly? Trivially? Desultorily? Mmm. Delving desultorily. There's a cumbersome Rock Group Name.)

SBD--Enjoying the stuff, dammit.

I talk a lot about my kids. They are an intriguing bunch, at least to me. My eldest daughter is what we might call an "old soul". Very, very smart (an A student, well except for that B in P. E.), and very, very articulate.

She hates Sixth Grade English. Hates it.

Oh, how this pains me.

She is stuck in one of those didactic hells we all find ourselves in from time to time; her teacher has a specific way of teaching her class and she will not be flexible in any way.

The textbook with reading samples and discussion questions is NOT to be read during free reading period. Grammar will be taught from pre-approved worksheets, NOT using examples drawn from the sample text. (Therefore my daughter has no clue how to USE any of the grammar she's learned.) After reading the assigned short book at home, the class will, after being called on individually, re-read the entire book aloud. All students will pay attention. Reading for enjoyment or reading ahead is strictly discouraged at all times.

So right now, the class is reading I Know Where the Red Fern Grows, which my daughter finished well before Halloween. Every day she goes to class (it's now mid-November) and listens as her classmates plod through it, paragraph by paragraph, rereading it out loud. She's not allowed to draw while she listens, she's not allowed to take notes while she listens: essentially, she's learning to hate this book.

I'm dying with her.

I LOVED my English classes. OK, I was for the most part blessed with excellent English teachers. But, you know, even I had to do mildly boring things. At one point in Sixth Grade we had to memorize a list of prepositions in alphabetical order. I remember it started with "Aboard, about, above, across..." and then I forget the rest. But that aside, we read some great stuff in Sixth Grade:

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (Which I hated until I got to the end. Eww. Freaky.)
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner (Eww. Freaky.)
To Kill a Mockingird by Harper Lee (Which still makes me cry.)
"The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin (Which I adore.)
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Which to this day still gives me nightmares.)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (The first of five class readings for this. I never grew to like it.)
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates (Devil?)
"The Dead" by James Joyce (which I didn't like at all until I read the entire Dubliners.)
"The A & P" by John Updike (Which I still don't like.)

So here's the thing, some of those I didn't really enjoy, but I learned how to appreciate the art within them. The ones I loved, well, I still love them. And beyond the idea that we have to read only the things that we lurve, I learned how to search for symbols, themes, foreshadowing, unreliable narrators, points of view, details, and controversies. I learned how to compare them, how to write about them, how to build a character sketch from the text, and how to dissect a text to support my point of view. And I did all that well before High School or even college.

I remember LOVING to search for symbols. Oh! A window! What could THAT mean? Oh! A flower! Innocence? Death? Romance? Which is it? And sometimes in my adolescent enthusiasm, I would go way too far, wringing meaning out of every description, trying to turn every scene into some greater allegory. (If Flowers Mean Something, then the vase must mean something, and the table, and the hallway, and the door at the end.) It took a bit of work by my Ninth Grade teacher to convince me to tone it down a touch. But hey, I was engaged. I was excited. I was eager to not only read, but to re-read, and to re-read again, trying to work out the structure of the story, the motive of the narrator.

My daughter's learning how to be a passive reader and how to build a diorama based only on the characters in the book. Oh, there's a good skill to have. Because so diorama-building is so ubiquitous in adult life. Wouldn't want to build up critical thinking skills, or, god forbid, writing skills.

So, this weekend, I started my daughter on a home course of Litera-toor.

I downloaded from the web four short stories: "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry, "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor, and "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin.

I wrote out some questions for her: Is there a moral to this story? When did you first suspect that this story wouldn't end the way you anticipated? Who is the narrator? Does the narrator like the characters? Does the author like the characters? Tell me about a theme, or a series of images in the story that you think the author included for some reason.

She read the stories, and we sat together to talk about the questions. I didn't ask her to write anything (yet).

And we genuinely enjoyed ourselves. Shocking, I know. Because, according to the educators, this shouldn't be at all fun. Every drop of enjoyment or discussion should be wrung from young students' minds.

Here are some of my daughter's interpretations:

The heroine in "The Gift of the Magi" is an idiot. She cries and sobs too much. Jim's OK, but he's kind of flat. And the last paragraph is very confusing. We think there's a moral, but O. Henry's writing is so dense at the end that it's hard to get to his meaning.

"A Rose for Emily" is creepy but beautiful. You need to read it about four times to get a sense of what happens when. A time line could help. The scariest line in the story is when Homer is described as being "in the attitude of an embrace." Ew.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is funny, but it's disturbing that it's funny. We shouldn't be laughing at the grandmother. The title means a lot of different things, depending on who's saying it.

"The Story of an Hour" is just so sad. The twist is meant to be ironic and show us something about the way men treat women, but really, it's just so sad. Too sad to even talk about even.


There now, that wasn't so hard. I find it hysterical that she has so little patience for Della, the heroine in "The Gift of the Magi." My daughter don't like no sniffling women. And I didn't expect her to be so troubled by "The Story of an Hour."

So we've decided that we're going to do this every week. I'm going to try to pull together ones which link together in some way. I'm thinking of doing angels and devils next. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" is an obvious one, and maybe "The Minister's Black Veil", and I'm trying to remember the name of the Mark Twain story about the little boy who breathes life into little mud people and then stomps on them--after all, they're his creations to do with what he will. I'd also like her to read some Ring Lardner, and Guy de Maupassant, and Edgar Allen Poe, and Saki, and everybody else I can think of.

Why are we so dedicated to wringing the life out of books? Why are we so dedicated to believing that a work such as Romeo and Juliet (which I read in Seventh Grade) is only a High School text because it was written by, shhhhhh, silence please, Shakespeare? Why do we do this to kids? Why do we refuse to teach them how to write? Why do we refuse to teach them how to read for context and subtle meanings? It's as if only knowing the plot is good enough.

Why do we teach the good readers, the smart readers, the articulate readers, how to hate reading?

SBD Help me. I reread a classic.

Oh lordy, lord. I couldn't help myself and reread a book I last read in the early 1980's. Actually, I read two. OK, one and a half, because I skimmed the second one.

I would like to post a picture here, but &*%#$ing Blogger won't let me. So go visit the Amazon page and soak in the glorious treacly goo that is Tiger Lily by Shirlee Busbee.

The boozoom, the lace, the weirdly orange hair, the riding boots, the font. Gah!

OK, except that what's really striking about this cover, is that it is an EXCELLENT depiction of what's between the covers of the book. Leap into the unbridled silliness that is Historical Romance circa 1985.

Hey, please note here that I am NOT snarking on this book. I like it exactly for what it is--the goofiest possible rendition of Spanish Texas, a love story bursting with metaphor, and physical descriptions which cannot end nor include a period, as can be wrapped up in 452 pages of the English language.

I actually had wanted to read Gypsy Lady, which I'm kind of thinking that maybe I remember as being the Busbee that I liked, but then I got Spanish Rose at a Library Sale, and sitting next to it, was Tiger Lily, so hey, into the bag you go.

(At the time I had remembered Tiger Lily as the book wherein a heroine is trapped on the second floor of a southern plantation house while her husband is searching the estate for the Eeeevul Villain. Eeeevul Villain, unbeknownst to our lovers, has snuck into the plantation house and rapes the heroine, using the line that will NOT get out of my head after twenty years, "Give me some cream." Bleggggghhhh! I wanted to see if the scene is just as awful as I remembered, but when I skimmed Tiger Lily there was no such rape scene, so I decided to read it.)

OH

MY

GOD!!

How perfectly insanely goofy is this thing?

Meet Senorita Sabrina. Meet Senor Brett. Yes. Brett. Quite Spanish a name, no? Sabrina is the daughter of a wealthy Spanish landowner. Brett is the older step-son of Sabrina's aunt who is married to--oh, forget it. It's just too complicated to be believed. They know each other, OK?

They first meet when Sabrina is seven and Brett is, OK, let's see here. Chapter Two. Yes. Brett is eighteen. They fall for each other.

Ewwwww. I'm sorry. An eighteen year old guy and a SEVEN YEAR OLD? I can see if she had a crush on him, but Brett is shown as being attracted to her. Page 20:

Her eyes huge, her own red-gold hair flame-colored in the sunlight, she demanded, "You will truly call him that? You will use the name I chose?"
Unable to help himself, Brett flicked a caressing finger down her cheek. "Naturally. What gentleman could refuse such a lovely lady?"

Aiiii! She's seven! Ewwwww. OK, deep breaths. I can get past this bizarre prologue/early section and chalk it up to laying a groundwork for early infatuation. Move On.

The next time they meet, Sabrina is turning seventeen, and her father has just decided that he should invite Brett to the hacienda for an extended visit. This way the two will fall in love, marry, and then the father won't have to worry about his daughter when he dies. (Ummm. Yeah. You got a Plan B there Dad?) She races her horse across a meadow, and Brett, who's just arrived, thinks she's on a runaway horse and so tries to rescue her. (Note: By dragging her off a galloping horse onto his galloping horse? Wow. There's a good way to give you and the victim a handy concussion.) She reacts by stabbing him in the arm while draped across the front of the saddle.

Dancing, I am! I love this shit! The feverish writing here just needs to breathe on the page. I was Squealing when I read this:

Cruelly twisting the arm behind Sabrina's back, he glared down into the angry features so near his own. Astonishment held him speechless as his stunned gaze took in the disheveled mass of flaming curls rioting around the most enchanting face he had ever seen--thickly lashed amber-gold eyes fairly spitting defiance and fury were set under haughty dark brows, a delicate nose with a delightful tilt at the tip was thrust arrogantly into the air, and below it was a generously curved mouth that fairly challenged any man to taste its sweetness.

It was that glorious hair and those unforgettable eyes that brought recognition to him almost instantaneously, and on a note of incredulity, the breathed, "Sabrina?"

Oh shit. This is too damn good. Exactly how long is instantaneously? Because, um, you know dude, I can't read that sentence out loud without gasping for breath. And why so shocked? You are visiting her father's house; she might just be there. But wait, there's more. Next paragraph:

At the sound of her name, Sabrina froze, and suddenly oblivious to the brutal hold on her arm, she stared up into the dark bearded face so near her own. It wasn't precisely reassuring. Heavy black eyebrows curved sardonically over deep-set, cynical, jade-green eyes ringed by remarkably long, thick, black, lashes--the impact of those eyes was mesmerizing. With an effort she tore her gaze away from his and swiftly took in the arrogant nose, the slightly flaring nostrils, and the full, mobile mouth with its mocking slant. The half-grown beard hid most of his face, but with her heart unexpectedly racing in her breast, her gaze once more fastened on the hard green eyes--green eyes that she had never quite forgotten. "Senor Brett?" she got out huskily, unable to believe it was really he.

Sixty-six pages in and they finally make eye contact and recognize each other. I guess the stabbing and the galloping horses helped jar the memory a touch.

I cannot begin to express how much I loved reading this. There are vengeful mothers, jealous pansy-boys, a fake pregnancy, scheming ex-mistresses, an almost rape, a cockney valet (in a Spanish Texas setting? Yeah. I dunno either.) The plot is, well, complex. And silly. Did I mention that after the horse ride, Brett and Sabrina do fall madly in love and Brett proposes?

Well, you'd expect that. But what you didn't expect, (ho ho!) was that Sabrina would reject his suit and that they would be separated for another six years.

Now wait just a goddamn minute. At this point I started trying to find the end page, because, um, it's a 452 page book, and we're only at page 265. What I didn't realize was that we had to get the Political Sub-Plot in. Because what's a romance novel without a political info-dump? Or a spy ring? And valets with attrocious fake English accents? (Oh, THAT'S why he has a valet!!)

Suffering succotash. By the time these two get together again, Brett has grey hair at his temples. (Counting on fingers, seven plus ten plus six. OK, Sabrina's twenty-three, so that makes Brett thirty-four?) So they get married, she gets pregnant, all is well, but, hmmmm, we're not at the end yet. Suisan is beginning to suspect the need for a kidnapping--my least favorite 1980's plot extender. No, no Suisan. You little fool. No Kidnapping Here!

A Fire!! A Fucking Fire! With pregnant Sabrina trapped in the mansion as beams crash down around her head! Quick, Brett! Save Sabrina! Last sentence. Phew!

But then, with a final, instinctive lurch, Sabrina unconscious in his arms, he staggered out of the house, into the night, the cool air that rushed to meet them a balm and a benediction.

Yay!! Curtain calls! Cue the orchestra!

Ooops. Nope. Wait a sec. An Epilogue.

An Epilogue! A Fucking Epilogue! Because there's MORE to this story. More flaming hair, more sardonic brows, more declarations of love, more, and more and more.

Help MEEE!! It's the plot that ate Cleveland! I'm laughing so hard I'm giving myself a stoamch-ache! Make it stop! The lovers won't stop mooning over each other! They're going to trip on their tongues, lolling out of their mouths like that.

That was one hell of a roller-coaster ride. I tried to read Spanish Rose, but when the little Spanish minx started stomping her little Spanish boot on the deck of her evil brother's Spanish galleon after she had stowed away to prevent a marriage to a Nasty Spanish Man, I just gave it up. Too many funnel cakes at the carnival.

Hoooo-boy. That there's one hell of a ride, though. No wonder I liked Shirlee Busbee so much.

SBD Sentimental Junk

OK, at some point y'all have to wonder why it is that I read romances. I don't like children, I don't like circuses, I'm dodgy on heroes of a certain caliber, and I don't much like heroines. But other than that, I'm hopping on the Romance Train!!

And today I have to write about sloppy weddings and other undeserved sentimental crap.

OK, I'm a stick in the mud--I don't much like weddings. I didn't even like my own.

I went to a friend's Greek Orthodox wedding and got so sick watching the bride and groom kissing the bejeweled bible that I almost had to leave. (Puritan Protestant bigotry apparently lies very deep within my bones. Really had no idea that I had such a visceral aversion to idolatry until that wedding.) For my own wedding, I spent months fighting with my mother on every detail, screwed up the hiring and confirmation of the photographer, and fought with my father the day before the wedding about the food to be served.

It would be easy to blame my parents' behavior about my own wedding for this ongoing discomfort about weddings, but it's not them. My anxiety has pre-dates that disaster. (The wedding, not the marriage. Twelve years next week.) Clarification: The Wedding was not a disaster. Planning the Wedding was terrible, but what did I expect? I went to my wedding, ate the food, and conversed, but it wasn't my favorite day. I just don't quite *get it.* I felt the whole day as if the assembled crowd was expecting me to break out into a Debbie Reynolds song and dance number just to demonstrate my complete glee:

Good Mornin'
Good Mo-oh-orning!
Ain't it great to stay up late!
Good Mornin', Good Morning To You!

I never played at being the blushing bride when I was a kid. Best-friend-Beth and I played at being twin queens of Mars who had arrived in our spaceship, co-piloted by pet Pomeranians, to pluck unsuspecting Barbies and Baby-dolls into indentured service on our home planet. I don't get the silk flowers in the hair, the need to smear cake on the groom's face, the tears. I watch other people choking up, but I must be missing a synapse, because I really don't get what the big deal is.

I read romances to follow the development of attraction into a relationship. Sex is good too, don't get me wrong. Mostly though, I want to see those two people merge together into a trusting unit.

I figure by the time they're walking down the aisle, they've pretty got this all worked out. But every once in a while there's a scene where the bride is looking at herself in the mirror on her wedding day, and the reader is supposed to feel all choked up. I usually can't make it through those scenes. And I can't figure out why the mother or older sister comes in to flutter all over her. (Well,there's usually some veiled comments about "the wedding night" just to remind the reader that bride=virgin.) But I can't get into anyone's head at this point--not even the groom's. Many books end up as DNF if this focus on the wedding goes on too long.

My favorite wedding scenes are the ones where something goes terribly wrong and the bride and groom simply have to leave partway through. Ahhhhh. No sermons, no weeping mothers.

And why are we weeping? I guess we're watching two young innocent people join together to start their lives together. And we in the audience are charged with supporting them as they learn how to be married together. Well, call me a cynic and serve me on toast, but if they really have no idea what they're getting into, then we in the audience shouldn't let them get married.

No. Really. I mean it.

OK, I think I finally know what I'm getting at here. (Thank God.)

I don't like the idea of the blushing innocent bride who just So Excited to be getting married. Oooo. Look at the pretty flowers! Ooooo. A cake! I wonder if it's chocolate. Wouldn't THAT be exciting! Ooooo. Look how pretty my boyfriend looks....

STOP!! The woman clearly has the attention span of a flea. Call it off. Nope.

Suisan's got alarm bells clanging so hard in her head that her teeth hurt. If you're getting married to eat cake and pick flowers, then you need to go back to celebrating your tenth birthday. If you're ready to get married, then do so. But please don't expect me to get all squeelly about your bouquet. It's yours. Enjoy it. Love your man. Support him and call him to task when he's behaving like a jerk. But really, this ain't no party. It ain't no disco.

It's a great thing to step forward into marriage, but please don't let's pretend that it's all one big costume ball. OK?

Smart Bitches Day

OK, so for Smart Bitches Day, as proposed by the lovely Beth, you're supposed to write about something that gets you crazy in Romancelandia. No holds barred, full on bitch-kitty ranting.

Sounds like fun, except that today I can't quite figure out what makes me tear-my-hair-out-nuts. Instead here's a list of minor annoyances.

Sex is squishy and messy. I don't really want to hear about bodily functions all that much, but, ummmmm, yeah. Sex outdoors--no grass stains for the servants to raise an eyebrow at? Sloppy seconds and thirds, and then lots of sitting in the Great Hall/Morning Room and no stains? (But that virgin blood on the sheets demands an extreme close-up.)

Are there no colors other than jewel tones? Amber eyes, etc. (What color amber? Because it comes in about seven shades of yellow to orange to red.) (Oddly personal aside here: In college I was supposed to write a composition in French wherein I described something. The unit focused on color vocabulary. So I opened my thesaurus and listed every blessed color I could. Then I opened my French/English dictionary and wrote down the translations for as many words as I could find. Five paragraphs done in twenty minutes--mostly just listing colors. The professor practically wet herself, she was so pleased with my essay. Ummmm. It's a list of words. But, OK, sure, give me an A. I won't complain.)

Long travels over land where the coach horses are rested or switched, but the horse the hero rides, so as to avoid being cooped up with Little Miss and her obnoxious chaperone, but which enables him to have conversations with Little Miss through the window, apparently never tires.

Duke, Duke, Duke. Duke of Earl, Earl, Earl. Marquess? Baronet? (Sir Percy Blakeney was a Baronet. What's good enough for the Scarlet Pimpernel is good enough for any poor sod named Damien. Or Lucien.)

Braies, Chausses, Hauberk, etc. I always have to look these up. Personal memory problem--especially since I have decided not to read Contemporaries. Every time a Medieval hero touches his clothing I have to struggle to figure out whether he's removing his shirt or his pants. Slightly distracting.

That seems to be all I've got stored up today. Pity--seems like there should be more.

Well, the sun is finally shining, so maybe I'm just not in a Bitchy mood. (But soon the coffee will run low, and then, who can tell?)

Happy May Day!! (Take a minute today, if you will, to consider what immigration law will do to the restaurant, construction, and janitorial industries. Butcher Husband has two distributors who are not even delivering today, since they're pretty sure there won't be enough cutters on-site at meat plants today to fill orders.)

And to put that earlier rant to rest....

...I just finished a book wherein the hero's name is Damion and I liked it.

Of course, I have have two excuses as to why that could be true without negating my earlier screed:

1) It is spelled Damion, rather than Damien, so it's really not, ahem, the same name.
2) It's a Medieval, and funky names don't bother me in Medievals. (Except for Wolff.

OK, so I'm still picky. And bitchy.

BTW--it's been a Reeeeellly long time since I've read a book set before 1800. Just a note to self to branch out a bit here.

SBD -- names

It's Monday, so it must be Smart Bitches Day!

Time for a Ranty McRant about Romances, romance, or sex & love.

Emmmm. Kind of don't have one lined up. Except that maybe I'm getting the sense that in Regency Romancelandia, some of the names don't quite work for me. Perhaps it's the Gaelen Foley I just read, but I'm kind of over Lucien, Damien, Gabriel, Adrian, or any other kind-of-sounds-like-an-angel name. I don't have access to 1790s birth records in London, but I'm guessing that Adrian wasn't at the top of the roles there.

I don't have a problem with king names (Richard, John, George), but we don't see too many Henrys, do we? And what about Alfred? Albert? (Andrew and Anthony show up a good deal in Regencies, and that "feels" right to me. Could do with more Geoffreys and Pauls--something other than Robert.) But what about Surnames? Jocelyn is one I've seen, there's the ever-famous Fitzwilliam, of Pride & Prejudice's Mr. Darcy. But I'm not thinking of too many Historicals I've read recently where the hero's given name "feels" like a possible surname--and I'm fairly sure it was a common practice for boys to be named for someone else's last name.

My grandmother grew up in a very New England Victorian family--we had lots of Johns and Roberts, and John Roberts on that side. But there were the names which died out after the 1930s too. Elwyn (Welsh, so maybe not a go for a Regency ball), Lester, and Lynde. Florence, Phebe, and Grace. On my father's side we have John, Thomas, and Douglas all confusingly reordered through the generations. (John Douglas begat Douglas Thomas who begat John Thomas, etc.) But then there's Dandridge as a first name, and the brothers of Nathaniel and Bartholomew. Nat and Bat.

Americans used to tend towards wonky names like Zebulon, Ezekiel, or Barnabus, and I'm not sure I want that in a hero's name (although I did grow up with a very good guy named Zebulon). But there's either something safe about the names Americans choose for British Regency heroes (Michael, Andrew) or something rather bizzare (Lucien, Damien, Wolf).

Two names I like which mean something to the book they're in: Hazel Motes in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. There are layers of meaning (some a little obvious) to their names, but it forever links that character to that book for me. Unlike, say, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises. It's a strong name, one you can say when you're drunk, a masculine, aggressive, American name. But I don't immediately identify the name with The Sun Also Rises in the same way that I do with, say, Sam Spade, Hazel Motes, or Nick Carraway.

I think that's my problem with Lucien--overused and it doesn't ring out as belonging to one particular book or author.

Historicals; or why Suisan turns up her ever so snooty nose at Contemporaries.

I'm completely sure that:

a) this will be a long post, and
b) I'll call it a Smart Bitches Day post, and
c) I may not have communicated a point at the end of it.


Ware!
(As us former foxhunters enjoy saying. So much more civilized that BEware, don't you think?)

In case you haven't taken the time to read my archives, let me say one more time that I loathe contemporaries. In fact, I hate them so much that I don't read them. In fact, I'm sure I've read less than ten since 1980, when I started reading Romances. In fact, I'm basically dead set against reading another.

"But Suisan," you say. "If you've never read them and you don't plan on reading more, then how do you know that you hate them?"

"Eh."

"You read Black Ice: you liked that. You read Futurelove: you liked that. You read Morning Glory, which may not be a Contemporary, but it's not set in Victorian England or earlier: you liked that. These were all recommended as GOOD contemporaries. Maybe you need to read more GOOD contemporaries."

"Oh, shut up. I hate you, and now I'm going to go sulk."

****Reads a few passages of Seize the Fire to cheer herself back up****

Ahhhh. That's better.

OK, but WHY is it better?

I'm not completely convinced of the answer, but I think it has to do with diction. Movies from the 1930s and 40s have a certain style, a certain word choice, a tone that sounds right. There's a flair to the language which works within the work, but would be totally bizarre if you tried to use it in real life.

"Hey there! Cabbie! Get me to Grand Central pronto! There a fiver in it for you if you do!"

So that's familiar, and it sounds almost sort of right in a movie or a book, but would you actually SAY that to "a cabbie" today in New York? Same with plays--the dialogue sounds right when you're sitting in the theater, but try it out on the sidewalk, and it sounds stilted or overblown.

When I read romances, I want that arch quality to the language. (Not purple. Please.) It needs to be a little more poetic, a little more formal, more descriptive, more lush, more unlike my everyday thoughts or speech.

At heart, I'm a cynic when it comes to stumbling onto love. The one guy I fell totally for, the one who could make my insides turn over just by moving his hand through sunlight into shadow, the one who told me I was the center of his world, turned out to be dangerous. And I don't think I've ever fully recovered--I may still be searching out the shrubbery in the evening for signs of ambush.

After him I became a terrible date: suspicious and cutting. I was always trying to figure out why the guy who asked me out thought I'd be a suitable target. I was waiting until he opened up, showed me part of his soul, so I could prick it with my sharp little fruit knife. No, really. I was not a nice person.

The one guy who broke through, basically said, "Oh, cut it out." It worked, but it's not terribly, in quotes, Romantic.

When I read romance, I still need some sort of barrier between me and the story so that I can relax enough to fall into the characters. With Historicals, I get caught up in the prose, or the funny turns of phrase in a well-written piece of Regency dialogue, and it's just soothing enough to flow right in. When I read a Contemporary, I'm on guard every moment of the journey. (He says he's rich, but how do you know it's not a con? He says he's never felt this way before, but come on, really? Oh My God. Can you not SEE that he's the owner of restaurant you're working in, you ignorant waitress?) Wrong, wrong, wrong, and my insides get twisted. I'm too busy protecting the heroine from her decisions to let her fall in love. And then when she does, I sincerely want to bitch-slap her. I think the language of Historicals is just enough of a barrier to work, but formal diction could never work in a Contemporary, could it?

Black Ice, a recent Contemporary, worked for me, I think, because the set-up was so over the top. International spy caught in a web of intrigue, trapped in a French mansion, stumbles across an elegant, virginal, heroine who must be protected without the bad guys catching on that he's planning to protect her. Midnight escapes, safehouses, assassination attempts: My advice, girly, is to hang out with big bad Bastien, the hero, until the villain's caught. Go right ahead, my warning antenna tell me that's a good plan, and once the antenna are safely shut down, I can settle back and enjoy the ride.

So if I can't rely on diction in Contemporaries, then maybe Romantic Suspense is the way to go, if I'm going to read more Contemporaries.

Yeah, but I hate 'em. I know I do.

SBD Old Cranks

Monday, Monday.

Must be time for Beth's Smart Bitches Day.

This is perhaps not so much of a rant or a bitch, but more of a personal exploration of what sort of Old Crank I enjoy. I know the kind I don't like, the Old Crank with the heart of gold--there's some analogy there to the prostitute with the heart of gold as well.

Old Crank with a Heart of Gold only APPEARS to be an Old Crank. Actually "OCw/HOG" is only acerbic because he or she has been deeply wounded by love or honor in the past. This OC is not nasty and biting by nature, and as soon as member of the opposite sex who is reasonably the same age shows up, then OC's barbs will melt away, displaying the Heart of Gold previously mentioned. Yeah, but no thanks.

I'm descended from a long line of cranky old women. (I think there are some brothers in there who are not angelic.) I have ancestors who were executed as witches during the Salem Witch Trials. Think their neighbors enjoyed them much? No, I don't think so either. My great-grandmother was famous in our family for sniping at kids during Christmas, "Don't tear the paper!" Gee, thanks, Nana. Nothing more fun than slipping your fingers under the tape to carefully ease the paper off a present. Nana would pick up all the paper, smooth out the creases, and disappear up into her room, muttering all the while about the dangers of exuberance during celebrations.

Then she would appear again with her presents to us--all wrapped in strangely familiar paper with creases across the tops of the boxes. Adults would elbow us painfully in the ribs if one of us happened to point out that she had guilted us into providing her with free paper. (And no, we were not allowed to tear that paper either. Wrath of Nana was not to be incurred.)

My favorite Old Cranks are The Duchess in Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm, and Signora Castelli in Liz Carlyle's No True Gentleman. They are demanding, cranky, and brook no disagreement from their favorite male offspring. (Maybe part of their charm is that the heroes genuinely respect them?) There are so many wonderful scenes in Flowers from the Storm, but in this context, I especially love the scene wherein The Duchess is trying to intimidate Maddy; she accuses Maddy of not respecting her elders. (I'd pull out the quote here, but my book is in the bedroom guarded by a cranky, eh, sleepy husband.) Paraphrasing, Maddy replies that she thinks that as she gets older there is every chance that Maddy will herself be an Old Crank. Yes!

Opinionated, lively, intelligent, and strong women can turn into Old Cranks very easily.

Where this begins to slide sideways for me is when the Old Crank is set up primarily as a side-kick to the hero. This guy tends to have a Heart Of Gold, one which is melted by finding a female Old Crank (often the older nurse/governess of the beguiling heroine). There's only one Romance I can think of where this romance of the older male character works--as comic relief.

Errol Flynn has Alan Hale as his robust and older sidekick through most of his movies. In Robin Hood Alan Hale is Little John, but Herbert Mundin plays Much, The Miller's Son. Maid Marian's nurse is Una O'Connor, "twittering like a hen." Neither Much nor Bess are attractive, but when they meet he likes her sharp tongue. Soon she's twittering over him, rolling her eyes, and it's funny and sweet.

But to me this only works if the older characters start off as comic characters. I enjoy seeing the hero and heroine set aside some of their pride and defenses to come closer to each other. If the older secondary characters are also loosing their sharp edges, it all becomes too much like an old Boston Cream Pie. Mushy, wet, and too sweet. It reads to me as if there's a pink cloud of fuzzy love surrounding the central couple. Anyone who comes too close to the pink cloud is sucked in and emerges on the other side as a cooing, sighing turtledove. Ew. One per book please.

I would like a story about Old Cranks falling in love, but I would want that to be a romance on its own merits, filled with snappy put-downs and reality checks. I imagine the dialogue would be great, and if we could all stand a few euphemisms in the sex scenes for various sagging body parts, I imagine the sex would be great too. (All that experience!) If the Old Cranks were surrounded by idiotic young 'uns running off to rescue various TSTL heroines held captive at the top of the highest tower, I could get into the Old Cranks waving them good-bye at the door, Princess-Bride-style.

What I most object to is the idea that once the young couple are filled with love, then the loving glow they create washes over the secondary characters so that they are helpless but to fall in love themselves.

Babies--wherein I alienate all mothers across time and space

An SBD rant posted one day late:

Babies in Romance.
Kill me now.

A knife right between the eyes--here, I'll even hold still for you.

My qualifications for bitching on this subject:

I have three children.
I had natural childbirth for all three.
My first labor was 33 hours long (occipital presentation: "Sunny side up")
My first child had colic for four months.
I breastfed all my children past one year.
My infants slept in the bed with us.
I donated my breast milk to neo-natal wards.
I trained as a doula (childbirth coach) and volunteered with midwives in a public hospital where the local inmates were sent to give birth while guarded by gun-toting correctional officers.
I worked with pregnant mares on a breeding ranch for years.
In both of the above cases I have had "water" break on my shoes.
I am a stay-at-home mom.
I ran for the School Board to ensure that my children's education would not be compromised by budget cuts.
I've made at least four tons of homemade play-dough.
Over the years I brought all three of my infants (one at a time) with me to therapists so that I could learn how to battle chronic depression and anxiety and not use their presence in my lives as an excuse not to go to sessions.
I have been thrown up on.
I have been thrown up on by other people's children.
I used cloth diapers for my middle child and washed them myself.
I have sat up all night in an armchair trying to keep a child with an ear infection vertical because the ER doctor cannot see the infection and therefore will not prescribe antibiotics.
I have watched goo leak out of my son's ear after his eardrum ruptured from an undiagnosed ear infection.
I have fought with doctors on behalf of my children.
I have fought with my children.
I have gloried in their triumphs, laughing and sobbing as my daughter plays "Theme from Pirates of the Caribbean" as a flute soloist. (She's performing "Tomorrow" from "Annie" on Friday in the town library. And I have refrained from wringing her neck as she practices. Lord, how I hate "Tomorrow.")
I love my children and I'm proud to be their mother, and sometimes I wear Birkenstocks.

And yet, I do not really enjoy children, even my own children, to the point where my head tilts to the side and my face is overcome with a rosy glow as I gaze upon their innocent faces. I also hated being pregnant. I hurt all over. I was anemic (tired), cranky, nauseated, and leaking breastmilk from about week three. (Don't tell me breast milk comes in after labor--I'm apparently part-Holstein. It was thick like colostrum during pregnancy, but I still needed to change bras daily and smell like yogurt for months.) To my children's continual disappointment, I do not volunteer in the classroom nor do I attend them on field trips. Screaming at a group of children to shut-up does not endear one to their parents--I'd rather not deal with the repercussions.

Therefore, when I pick up a romance, I do not want to be treated to the blond-haired daughter of the heroine who is running away from her love of the hero. (Which Jude Deveraux book was this? He gives her a rose a day until there are bushels of roses, but he kind of forgets to actually propose?)

One day young adorable child wanders into bedroom of hero, crawls up onto the bed and wakes him. He sits up in bed to find her perfectly arranged on his blanket, at the center of the circle made by her freshly laundered skirt. She sticks her finger in her mouth, sucks thoughtfully, and then pulls her gooey finger out to ask, "Are you going to stay here with me and Mommy or ever and ever?"

Awwwwww.

Meanwhile, Suisan is fantasizing about going after the young gamin-faced child Lizzie-Borden-style.

To me, motherhood is not fulfilling. It doesn't fill me up. It is the single most ego-defying endeavor you can commit to. (Man, I'd like to go take a nap. That would make me feel better. Nope, the kids need a responsible Mom around.) It is ultimately gratifying, and I'm completely commited to the project at hand. I'm proud of myself and I'm proud of my children. I love them, but I don't expect anyone else to be enamoured of them. But it is not instantly fulfilling in that I do not feel better at the end of the day, I do not enjoy watching them on a playground, and I do not feel warmth and contenment ruffle through me as I watch them eat a wholesome sandwich I prepared with my own two hands so that they could have the most nutritional meal possible. I love my children--but caring for them is not an emotional act for me.

Of course, when other people love my children, I love that. But I don't expect it. It is expected, however, that you must fall in love with children in romances as you read about them.

The children in romances are always there to be loved in a soft-focus Hallmark way. Look! She picks flowers! Look! He rides a pony! Ewwwww. Get them off stage now before the farting and the screaming and the fighting begin.

Oh lordy, then there's pregnancy. Never is a woman more fulfilled than when she's puking into a chamber pot, basking in the knowledge that she will bring forth a daughter with the eyes of the hero or a son with the mother's hair. She's ever-connected through the ages to all the women who came before her, bearing the strong men of the Fill-In-The-Blank Clan. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

So, in summation, I'm working hard enough as it is to take care of my own kids. Please don't burden me with more when I pick up a romance to escape. Thanks.

Party!!

Beth is celebrating the one year anniversary of Smart Bitches Day! Now there's a fine tradition!

(I keep meaning to post something ON Smart Bitches Day WITH the correct topic. Have failed entirely since, eh, August 2005.)

So to celebrate the anniversary, I'm making my first SBD post!