What Are You Reading Wednesday
Mar. 26th, 2014 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxWhat Have You Just Finished Reading?
Ridiculous! by D.L. Carter
Fluff.
As an analogy, it's sort of like if you had Pride and Prejudice except Elizabeth didn't meet Darcy and Mr. Bennet died, leaving the Bennet sisters in the care of Mr. Collins. Which, while insufferable in its own right, is made far, far worse when Mr. Collins then dies, leaving the Bennet sisters and their mother soon-to-be homeless, in poverty, and potentially workhouse bound because the distant cousin who is next in line is a pitiless, compassionless asshole (those damned entailments!) until "Elizabeth" basically says "screw this!" and decides to chop off her hair, move the family to Bath, and become "Mr. Collins" herself, figuring she could do a better job managing things anyway.
The Shakespeare references make me think that we aren't supposed to question whether or not Mellicent (the would be Elizabeth Bennet of this analogy) could pull off being a man in convincing way. We're to accept the conceit much as in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and the like. The 'woman experiences Regency England as a man" aspect is clearly what most interests the writer because it is what composes most of the novel (the romance, such as it is, arrives late and bound up with the friendship of Melli--er... Mr. North and his new best friend Shoffer (who is clueless about the disguise for roughly 85% of the book, and who doesn't even arrive in the novel until roughly 40%). It's a bit more about the gender politics, the freedom of being 'male' at that time and the injustice of women not having property rights.
Generally light in tone with a touch of relatively chaste romance (that doesn't even come about until the last 15%, after Shoffer freaks the hell out when he discovers that he and Mr. North are being accused of "buggery", which is, of course, quite illegal at that time. And it is rather funny that by that point Shoffer still didn't catch on that "Mr. North" is viewed by most as being rather effeminate (due to 'he' actually being SHE, so that wasn't much of a stretch. She probably was a rather effeminate 'man.') Alas, Shoffer is a creature of his time, so his attitudes regarding this accusation (and the subsequent innuendos re: his own sexual orientation) are neither modern nor progressive, so "Mr. North" loses his best friend (to his female alter-egos hearbreak)...for a while.
But, like a Shakespearean comedy, all is well that ends well. More or less.
Currently Reading:
Still planning to start The Serpant Prince
Reading Next:
Don't know.
Ridiculous! by D.L. Carter
Fluff.
As an analogy, it's sort of like if you had Pride and Prejudice except Elizabeth didn't meet Darcy and Mr. Bennet died, leaving the Bennet sisters in the care of Mr. Collins. Which, while insufferable in its own right, is made far, far worse when Mr. Collins then dies, leaving the Bennet sisters and their mother soon-to-be homeless, in poverty, and potentially workhouse bound because the distant cousin who is next in line is a pitiless, compassionless asshole (those damned entailments!) until "Elizabeth" basically says "screw this!" and decides to chop off her hair, move the family to Bath, and become "Mr. Collins" herself, figuring she could do a better job managing things anyway.
The Shakespeare references make me think that we aren't supposed to question whether or not Mellicent (the would be Elizabeth Bennet of this analogy) could pull off being a man in convincing way. We're to accept the conceit much as in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and the like. The 'woman experiences Regency England as a man" aspect is clearly what most interests the writer because it is what composes most of the novel (the romance, such as it is, arrives late and bound up with the friendship of Melli--er... Mr. North and his new best friend Shoffer (who is clueless about the disguise for roughly 85% of the book, and who doesn't even arrive in the novel until roughly 40%). It's a bit more about the gender politics, the freedom of being 'male' at that time and the injustice of women not having property rights.
Generally light in tone with a touch of relatively chaste romance (that doesn't even come about until the last 15%, after Shoffer freaks the hell out when he discovers that he and Mr. North are being accused of "buggery", which is, of course, quite illegal at that time. And it is rather funny that by that point Shoffer still didn't catch on that "Mr. North" is viewed by most as being rather effeminate (due to 'he' actually being SHE, so that wasn't much of a stretch. She probably was a rather effeminate 'man.') Alas, Shoffer is a creature of his time, so his attitudes regarding this accusation (and the subsequent innuendos re: his own sexual orientation) are neither modern nor progressive, so "Mr. North" loses his best friend (to his female alter-egos hearbreak)...for a while.
But, like a Shakespearean comedy, all is well that ends well. More or less.
Currently Reading:
Still planning to start The Serpant Prince
Reading Next:
Don't know.
