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Monthly Archives: April 2011

I recently picked up two books from my research TBR pile, Ian Kelly’s BEAU BRUMMELL: The Ultimate Man of Style (2006) and HARRIETTE WILSON’S MEMOIRS: The Greatest Courtesan of her Age (1957), edited and with an introduction by Lesley Blanch. I’m not done with the latter yet, but one thing caught my attention in both Kelly’s and Blanch’s introductions: their views on the subject of personality and celebrity.

Blanch’s introduction begins: “The nineteenth century was an age of great personalities, a last splendid flowering before twentieth-century anonymity and mass living engulfed them in its drab tide.” I was rather surprised. Even though this was written in 1957, surely they had celebrities then as we do now.

Contrast this with Ian Kelly’s prologue, in which he writes of Brummell that: “His fame eclipsed even that of his royal master, and his personal cult was described as so bizarre and alarming by his contemporaries it is reasonable to posit him not only as a key personality in the first anonymous metropolis, but as the first truly modern celebrity.”

Further, Blanch writes with what seems rather like nostalgia that the courtesan “does not flourish in an industrial age. She may be said to have vanished with the nineteenth century, the first half of which, specifically, was the heyday of all those women whose personality and style, more than beauty alone, were such that they could command, besides large sums of money, independence and respect.”

I would agree that we no longer have exactly this sort of courtesan, but I think this type of celebrity still exists, though in somewhat different form and not constrained by gender.

Here are some more snippets from BEAU BRUMMELL that seem apropos:

“He came to symbolize a new attitude in response to the novel urban landscape. He was indifferent to politics, above the vagaries of fashion, sought only to be envied and make people laugh and accrued around his person a cult based on his perceived personality. He was a celebrity in the first age when such a term was used.”

“Like a modern celebrity, his image—of an insouciant, audacious, stylish brat—had a power of its own that overcame truth.”

This makes me think about modern celebrities. Some are famous for their activity in the areas of politics, social action, music, film or other arts. I find them interesting and like to know what they’re working on, though I don’t care who they’re sleeping with. Then there are celebrities like Paris Hilton and the Kardashians. I find them a snooze but maybe that’s just me. Perhaps they are something in the tradition of Beau Brummell and Harriette Wilson.

Still, I find the Regency personalities more entertaining and more witty. Beau Brummell has also left an enduring legacy in his influence on men’s clothing. I think the style he promoted really is flattering to most men. When ordinary guys look good in business suits or in their tuxes at a wedding party, we have Brummell to thank for it. Harriette, on the other hand, hasn’t left much beyond her memoirs. They do provide a fascinating glimpse into a side of Regency society we don’t often read about elsewhere.

What do you think about the cult of personality and celebrity? Do you have any favorites, historical or current, and what do you think makes them interesting?

Elena

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I know I’ve gone on and on about how busy I am these days (really, people with full-time jobs: How do you do it?).

And also gone on and on about how great it is to commute by subway because I can read. So this week I read Eloisa James‘ latest book, When Beauty Tamed The Beast.

I’ve long been a fan of James’ work, and I marvel at how intricately she wraps up her great casts of people and finds small moments that become big events in the course of her books. But this book, I feel, is a game-changer for her, one that takes her talent and catapults it to the next level.

If you’ve paid attention to this new release at all, you know that the hero is modeled after the character of House, MD, played on TV by Hugh Laurie. And James gets it all right: The irascibility, pain, frustration, impatience, and despair at the thought of losing patients.

Her heroine is not normally someone with whom I would have a lot in common: She’s stunningly gorgeous and used to having men fall at her feet. But, and this is what is frustrating to her, she is also very clever, but no-one sees that because they stop assessing her after they see her beauty.

James does a few unusual things in this book, most notably not having an HEA when you would reasonably expect it to happen, and she strips away the things that each character holds most dear in order to make them vulnerable enough for love.

I appreciated, also, having the main romance be the Main Romance, not muddled by a lot of ancillary stories–speaks to the linear person in me, I suppose.

I did that delicious sigh of satisfaction as I finished the book, and I was really impressed that after writing for so long, James has improved with this release; it seems, sometimes, as though authors start to cycle downwards after a long and successful career.

Have you read this book yet? What’s the most recent book you sighed over?

Megan

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In honor of Charlotte Bronte’s birthday and as a followup to last week’s post about the latest movie version of Jane Eyre, I’m recycling a post from 2005 about the book.

Even people who haven’t read Jane Eyre know what it’s about. They know who Mr. Rochester is, they know about the mad wife in the attic, they know the heroine is a friendless governess. I found this out after writing an alternative erotic novella based on JE (called Reader, I Married Him, one of the book’s most famous lines)–and I showed it to a few other writers for critique. They immediately knew what it was about whether they’d read JE or not. (In my version, btw, it’s Mr. Rochester who’s chained up in the attic.)

[Update: I did finally publish Reader, I Married Him, and it’s a finalist in Passionate Ink’s contest for pubbed books, The Passionate Plume. Huzzah!]

It’s not my favorite Bronte–that’s Villette, also by Charlotte Bronte, a real kick-ass book that is even more brave, puzzling, difficult, and frustrating than JE.

I hate the fact that JE runs away from Rochester because he wants her to become his mistress–the fact that he’s lied through his teeth to her and taken advantage of her lowly status and lack of connections doesn’t really seem to bother her as much. The sexiest part of it is not the love scenes with Rochester (which I find cringeworthy), but life at Lowood. I remember reading it during adolescence and getting all steamed up in the early part of the book and bored with the rest of it, and couldn’t really understand why. Wasn’t it Mr. R who was supposed to float my boat? Although I have to admit that first meeting with the hound and the mysterious figure on horseback has a wonderful, mythic quality to it. The first sentence of the book is extraordinary for an era that specialized in purple prose (in which Charlotte Bronte did pretty well)–blunt, atmospheric, spare:

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

Very fitting for a book that is about repression, choices made from necessity, and the lack of opportunity for action.

My daughter, a tough, cynical sophomore (and English major) [in 2005] told me she was quite shocked by JE. Why? Well, there’s all that talk about mistresses, she said. It is an extraordinarily frank book in that regard–although of course all of Mr. R’s messing about took place on the Continent, where Englishmen went to behave like, well, foreigners. That makes it all the more shocking when he sets out to entrap Jane into a bigamous marriage. As for the fate of the first Mrs. R, it does make you wonder how many mentally ill female family members were quietly tucked away under the eaves. Better than sending them to a mental hospital, of course, but the same treatment could be meted out to disobedient or eccentric wives.

JE may be the first historical regency gothic. It was published in 1847, and is placed somewhere in the regency period. There are a few hints–a reference to a novel by Walter Scott, for instance–that place the novel anywhere in the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century. I think Bronte is being deliberately obscure–it’s set in that period when England hovered on the brink of change that came about with the 1832 reform bill. It was a period that fascinated the Victorians–much of Dickens and George Eliot is set in the late 1820s–because afterward, everything was different. She’s writing about a time that is now history, from the perspective of the present, deliberately manipulating fact to fit fiction.

So, I really can’t avoid this: JE as a great love story. Well, yes, but… There’s Jane’s capitulation and surrender (on an emotional, not physical level) to Mr. R–almost–she’s always holding herself back, playing it safe, exercising caution and control. Jane is constantly reminding us of Mr. R’s brooding physical presence, his size, and ugliness, a Beast she cannot tame. It’s only when he’s debilitated by the fire that he become safe enough to domesticate. I don’t necessarily agree with the favorite theory that it’s more than his arm and eye that got damaged in the fire (and then how on earth did Jane get pregnant–I mean, I wonder anyway, but really, that’s just dumb…), but now Jane is the strong one, the heroine who makes the choice to begin her journey with him.

Comments, anyone?

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As I have said many times, I am probably the world’s worst read romance novelist. I am in awe of how many books my fellow Riskies and our commenters are able to read, but I just can’t keep up, even though my love of books is deep and heartfelt.

Somehow (don’t ask me how), Janet’s and Megan’s blogs about movies made me think of movies I’ve seen and those I haven’t. That led me to books. That led me to wondering just how poorly read was I.
There are tons of must read lists on the internet, but most were too long or included obscure (to me) titles I figured most people would not have read. Others seemed to be confined to one person’s opinion. I settled on Booklist’s Classic Novels list. This would be a good test of how poorly read I am.
Here’s the list and my scores as well:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
yes
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
no
Beloved by Toni Morrison
no, but I think I’d like this book
The Best Short Stories by O. Henry
I’m not sure if I’ve read them all, but I’ve read O. Henry
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
surprisingly enough, no. My schooling somehow did not include this book.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
no
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
yes, read by choice, not for class
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
yes. A must-read for any adolescent
The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
(don’t hit me!) no
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
no
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
no. I confess, I had not heard of this book.
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
yes
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
yes
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
yes
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
no
The Great Gadsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
no
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
no
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
yes, thanks to a wonderful Black Literature course in college
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
yes, of course
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
yes
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
yes
My Antonia by Willa Cather
no, but I’m certain I read some of her short stories
Native Son by Richard Wright
yes, that Black Lit course, again
1984 by George Orwell
no. It was never required of me
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
no
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
maybe…but somehow I think I read it as a play
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
yes
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
yes!!!
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
no
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
yes
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
yes
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
no, but I would like to read this one
Silas Marner by George Eliot
yes
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
no
The Stranger by Albert Camus
no
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
yes
Tales by Edgar Allen Poe
yes, at least some of them
Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
yes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
no, but another one I’d like to read
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
yes. In fact, my high school English teacher, Miz Lee, was Harper Lee’s cousin, but I’d read the book before then
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
no
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
no – are you kidding?
Wineburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
no. Another collection of stories I’d not ever heard of.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
yes
My score is 23 out of 44, a tad above 50%. I suppose that would be a failing grade, wouldn’t it?
I have excuses! Although I was an English major in college, I steered myself primarily to English authors, not American ones. In fact, that Black Literature course, innovative for its time, was probably the only course I took covering American authors.
Even more appalling, I asked my adult daughter if she’d read some of these books. She took lots of English in high school and some in college. She’s even worse than I am, which makes me wonder about the state of schools these days. She never read Moby Dick, for example. Or The Old Man and The Sea. She did read The Grapes of Wrath, but for an economics course, not English.
Who is brave enough to share their scores? If you graduated high school in the last 10 years, we might need to give you consolation points.
Visit me again on Thursday at Diane’s Blog. I’m going to talk about asking for what you want, and NOT in The Secret kind of way. And on Wednesday I’ll be writing something historical for the Harlequin Historical Author blog.
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I’m writing this a week in advance, because on the Saturday it will post I will be returning from a week in Florida, where we are visiting family during my children’s spring break.

Frankly, I must say that Florida is not my favorite vacation spot. There are fun things to do, of course, and it’s good to see relatives. But the Orlando area is Too Crowded and Too Hot. I am hardened by our upstate NY winters, I guess!

I did enjoy my visit to the Florida Keys, because I went scuba diving and saw a shark, just the right kind: about four feet long and swimming the other way! Tropical vacations for me have to include some sort of snorkeling or diving.

Otherwise, I prefer temperate climates, lakes and mountains. I love Maine, especially Acadia National Park, and I’ve had many wonderful vacations in Canada. I think I’d enjoy going out to the Rockies sometime.

During the Regency, the trend for seeking out the picturesque was satirized in William Combe’s poem “The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,” illustrated by Thomas Rowlandson. I wouldn’t have cared; I would have gone anyway.

Here are some of my favorites among the picturesque spots I visited while on international assignment in the UK. My own pictures are buried; these are all from www.geograph.org.uk.

First, the Lake District. There’s a famous incident where a visitor, after boring Beau Brummell with stories of a tour in Scotland, asked him which were his favorite lakes. To depress the bore’s pretensions, Brummell consulted with his valet before replying “Windermere, will that do for you?”

My own real favorite in the Lake District is Ullswater, of Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” fame. My husband and I rented a canoe there one breezy afternoon. We paddled against the wind both ways (it turned just as we did) and enjoyed the movement of the clouds and the play of light over the hillsides until a light drain drove us toward shore and a nice pub in Glenridding.

Tintagel: crags, ruins and Arthurian legend. Who could ask for anything more?

The Isle of Skye: more fantastic scenery and sheep with an attitude. At one point in our travels, a ram planted his feet in the middle of the road in front of us and glared at us. I had to get out to shoo him out of the way and frankly, I was a little unnerved!

The Cotswolds: pastoral countryside, churches, cottages all built of a lovely golden stone. When my husband accidentally damaged our old brick fireplace in a fit of home improvement, we decided to rebuild it with stone that reminded us of the Cotswolds.

Do you enjoy the picturesque? What are some of your favorite destinations, in Britain or elsewhere?

Elena