I read the description of Judith Ivory's The Beast and some reviews of it on Amazon today. I'm currently reading Sherry Thomas' Beguiling the Beauty - which appears to be Thomas' twist on Ivory's "Beast" story. What Thomas does, and I haven't seen this done before - is the heroine has an overwhelmingly beautiful face. So beautiful that when the hero first glimpses her from afar he is "overcome" and each time he sees her, again from afar, he becomes more and more obsessed. Then he hears a malicious rumor about her from her husband - that her beauty is only skin deep, and her horrible she is. (It's not true - her husband is a jealous man, and horrid to her. And never sees beneath the surface.) He doesn't believe it at first - that is until he reads about her husband's death, and how the husband was driven bankrupt buying her jewels. The even more malicious gossip about her remarriage, and the subsequent death of her second husband, who died when she was allegedly having an affair with his best friend. So he decides she's a beast. The hero is a naturalist - and is giving a lecture on naturalism at Harvard, which the heroine decides to attend with her sister and sister-inlaw - in the hopes of setting her sister up with him. During the lecture - he is asked a question about whether "beauty" is an inherited trait and its effects on evolution. During his response, he provides an example of how feminine beauty can be the downfall of most men, and how beautiful women can be well "beastly" and shallow. The example he uses is the heroine, leaving her name out of it, but providing enough information - that she recognizes who he is talking about and is deeply wounded.
Her sister, Helena, suggests that when the opportunity arises the heroine should seek vengeance against him. Make him fall for her, then cut him. It does, she wears a veiled hat...and takes on the identity of a German Baroness...he is not permitted to see her face. He falls in love with her, but never sees her face, and she with him.
You see the gender flip? She not only grabs the concept from Ivory and flips it. But she instead of doing the fairy tale, she sort of references the Greek myth - Cupid and Psyche, except the woman is cupid, and the male is psyche. Rather clever.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-02-12 12:57 am (UTC)During his response, he provides an example of how feminine beauty can be the downfall of most men, and how beautiful women can be well "beastly" and shallow. The example he uses is the heroine, leaving her name out of it, but providing enough information - that she recognizes who he is talking about and is deeply wounded.
Her sister, Helena, suggests that when the opportunity arises the heroine should seek vengeance against him. Make him fall for her, then cut him.
It does, she wears a veiled hat...and takes on the identity of a German Baroness...he is not permitted to see her face. He falls in love with her, but never sees her face, and she with him.
You see the gender flip? She not only grabs the concept from Ivory and flips it. But she instead of doing the fairy tale, she sort of references the Greek myth - Cupid and Psyche, except the woman is cupid, and the male is psyche. Rather clever.