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sea_changed) wrote2018-12-12 01:40 pm
misc historical fiction recs
Life Mask, by Emma Donoghue
Have you ever thought to yourself, you know what my life needs more of? Historical lesbians.
If so, do I have a book for you.
Life Mask is set in the last decades of the 18th century, and focuses on Anne Damer, a professional female sculptor. She is a real historical figure, as is every other character in the book--if you know something about 18th century politics (Fox!), literature (Walpole!), or theater (Siddons!), you'll likely see names crop up that you know. Even if you known nothing of the place or time, however, Donoghue immerses you so fully in the world she has uncovered and created that you are left feeling like you know ever inch of it. The book is detailed and leisurely, but never in a bad way: Donoghue leads you through all 600 pages as you get to know and understand Anne by watching her go about her life. The book almost feels like time travel: Donoghue less seems to create the world of the book as place you inside an already-real world, letting you watch its events unfold around you.
The other main characters of the book are Eliza Farren, an actress who climbs the social latter by virtue of her beauty, her talent on the stage, and her minute attention to every social rule she cannot afford to break; and the Earl of Derby, who's friends with Anne and interested in Eliza. The two of them and Anne have a complex relationship, but it is Anne and Eliza's relationship, which is fraught with tension and rumor and how other people perceive who and what they are, that is the most interesting. (The scene where they kiss is wonderful, though possibly not for the reasons you expect.) Despite this, and despite the fact that she is not the only POV character, this is Anne's novel, and watching her unfold and grow over the course of the book is its real pleasure.
I enjoyed it mightily; it's the kind of historical fiction you can sink yourself into completely, absolutely trusting that the author has your back both narratively and historically. If you've read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you haven't, I hope this has convinced you; I can't recommend it enough.
(Cross-posted to tumblr)
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The Lord John Series, by Diana Gabaldon
And I’m back with more book recs, this time for Diana Gabaldon’s Lord John series.
I casually picked up the first couple books at the library a few weeks back, devoured them, and was back two days later for the rest of the series. I read the whole first novel in a state of slight disbelief that these were actual books someone had really written, because they were so exactly attuned to what I would want in stories about a gay British Army officer who solves crime in mid-eighteenth century London, if that had been a thing I had ever even realized that I wanted before.
The centerpiece of these books is Lord John Grey himself: a highly intelligent, highly skilled army officer with a dry sense of humor and an acute, almost painful sense of honor. He’s also gay, and accepting of that, but is keenly aware that the two things that matter most to him–his family and the British Army–can never intersect with his life as a gay man, both because he would be disgraced in their eyes but also because he would cause disgrace to fall on them: he is fiercely loyal and fiercely aware of the intricacies of the systems of honor in his world. (Mild spoilers, but there’s a part of the second novel where he has to grapple with his honor as an officer and a gentleman versus his honor as a person, and specifically a gay person, and it’s exquisite.)
The books and Grey himself feel very grounded in their setting, and his point of view makes the often baffling honor system of the eighteenth century seem as (internally, at least) logical and deeply important as it was to gentlemen of the time. I also particularly love just how many gay characters (at least gay men) Grey interacts with, and the variety of those interactions: the books create a sense of an entire gay world in the midst of their greater eighteenth-century world.
They’re also mysteries (I wasn’t joking about the solving crime thing), are sometimes trashy and sometimes bewildering; they are by no means high literature, but they are, generally, very good at what they are. They’re also often extremely funny, though it should be noted that they are also on occasion very serious and difficult to read.
Finally, it should be noted that they are a spin-off of Gabaldon’s Outlander series, and so if you go in blind, with no knowledge of Outlander, you might be mildly lost in parts: that said, I myself went in completely blind and was fine. Because of their spin-off status there are also a lot of confusing reading-order shenanigans, which I go into under the cut, but if you don’t want to deal with all that then know that you can just pick up the first full-length novel of the series, Lord John and the Private Matter, and easily start there.
As always, if you’ve read these before or read them because of this post, feel free to come talk to me about them; I’d love to chat.
More reading-order info, for those so inclined:
In total, the Lord John series consists of three full-length novels and six novellas. The first three novellas (”Hellfire Club,” “Succubus,” and “Haunted Soldier”) are collected in Lord John and the Hand of Devils; the last three novellas (”The Custom of the Army,” “Plague of Zombies,” and “Besieged”) are all in the greater Outlander novella collection Seven Stones to Stand and Fall.
The novellas are a lot more uneven and generally not as good as the novels; my personal recommendation would be to just read the three novels and the second two novellas. (In chronological order, that would be Private Matter, “Succubus,” Brotherhood of the Blade, “Haunted Soldier,” and Scottish Prisoner.)
However, if you’d like to read the whole series, in order, it goes:
“Lord John and the Hellfire Club”
Lord John and the Private Matter
“Lord John and the Succubus”
Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade
“Lord John and the Haunted Soldier”
The Scottish Prisoner
“The Custom of the Army”
“Lord John and the Plague of Zombies”
“Besieged“
You could also read just enough of the Outlander series to have context for Lord John: to do that, before starting the Lord John series, read Chapter 36 of Dragonfly in Amber (the second Outlander book) and the first 15 chapters of Voyager (the third Outlander book). (Technically the events of Dragonfly are recounted in Voyager, so reading it isn’t necessary, but personally I love his appearance in Dragonfly, so if you can get your hands on a library copy I’d highly recommend it.)
Happy reading! If you’re dreadfully confused by any of this, feel free to drop me a line and I’d be happy to explain further.
(Original post, 12 April 2018, 16 notes)
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Golden Hill, by Francis Spufford
All right, folks, I’m really actually back this time–life got crazy there for a while, but I’ve officially returned the land of the living blogs. And I return bearing gifts, in the form of a book rec: Golden Hill: A Novel of Old New York, by Francis Spufford.
I can’t explain all of its greatness without giving it away, but it’s about race, and storytelling, and politics, and colonialism. It’s set in 1740s New York, and has a lot of really great historical detail, and grounds you wonderfully in its time and place. The writing is rich and gorgeous; there’s one particular female character who is thorny and complicated and one of my favorite characters I’ve met this year; there’s a great, interracial gay couple. It manages to be a really good story while also making broader commentary on its setting and events, and doesn’t so much balance those two elements as combines them into one. (It’s also by the author of Red Plenty, if that’s on your radar, which if it is should be recommendation enough.)
Anyway–I really, really enjoyed it, and I feel like there’s enough thematic overlap with Black Sails that there’s a good chance some of you might enjoy it, too. (I also want people to talk about it with, so this isn’t entirely altruistic–if you do read it, definitely come talk to me about what you think.)
(Original post, 6 January 2018, 58 notes)
elizabethminkel added: Seconding this endorsement!! I read GH a few months ago and it was one of my favorite books last year. I agree about the thematic overlap with Black Sails—it’s a really interesting postcolonial text, though I will also avoid saying much more to keep from giving things away. It’s a real masterclass in constructing a *sense* of place—you feel like you intrinsically understand the Manhattan of that moment—and the prose itself is a total delight. (I kept grinning on the subway, which is…not a normal occurrence.) (I also read a good portion of it a stone’s throw from the actual Golden Hill—this book showed up in my life just as the ferry connecting me to Lower Manhattan started crossing the harbor…)
fand0mfan added: Heartily thirded! This book was a rip-roaring delight to read. It feels like reading a proper, old-fashioned picaresque novel, including a sense of morality and consequences that aren’t 100% aligned with the social norms of today. But by skewing things just that little bit, it becomes an incredible well-observed piece of social commentary.
There were things that happened in this book that I chortled with delight about. There were things that made me actually legit gasp in disbelief. There were things that made me truly sad. And it stayed with me in the way only the great books really do.
I agree with the above comments about thematic overlaps with Black Sails, though I read it before I got into Black Sails. But whether or not you’re a Black Sails fan (and if you’re not because you haven’t watched it, here’s the obligatory “Black Sails fan trying to convince everyone they should watch Black Sails” moment), this book is a great piece of narrative fiction, and it makes me happy that books like this are still being written.
I added: I’m super pleased other people around these parts have read and enjoyed it.
@elizabethminkel - It’s a real masterclass in constructing a *sense* of place—you feel like you intrinsically understand the Manhattan of that moment is exactly what it is This is exactly it–you feel like you understand the mental world of the characters, and how they see their world, which is what I’m looking for always in historical fiction as well as nonfiction (swapping characters for historical figures, though there’s a thing to be said too about creation of character in nonfiction, obvs.). Which ties in really nicely with
@fandomfan - including a sense of morality and consequences that aren’t 100% aligned with the social norms of today. Yes! And back to what I was saying about seeing the world through the character’ eyes–there’ an understanding of mentality rather than just setting that makes it transcend the idea of “historical fiction” as largely aesthetic or situational, and gives it a much richer and more satisfying foundation.
elizabethminkel added: 10000% cosigning this!! Also cc’ing @pamphilia, who recced Golden Hill to me in the first place, and who has very strong (/good) feelings about historical fiction. Too often I feel like people either 1) think of people from the past as total aliens 2) think of people in the past as if they were *exactly like us*, or at least with our exact constructions and perspectives on the world. Neither of those are true—and I think it takes a huge amount of skill to do this kind of thing well.
fand0mfan added: YES!!! This book walks that line of the past feeling not-alien and not-familiar, and it does it just perfectly.
And since we’re all reblogging and cosigning each other repeatedly here, I’ll put in a plug that you can now buy the Kindle version of this glorious novel for a mere $1.99.
pamphilia added: Entirely agreed (especially about my feelings being both Strong and Good)! I actually enjoy a bit of creative anachronism - like those moments when Dorothy Dunnett characters sound like they’re from the 1930s - but at its best it’s done deliberately and helps to flag up both the continuity between time periods and the gap.
I also love what Golden Hill does with the eighteenth-century novel, which is a niche interest but mine own.
(Threaded post with additions v1, v2, v3)
MAJOR GOLDEN HILL SPOILERS AHEAD:
inclineto replied: I’ve read it! In fact, I’ve had multiple conversations about it in the last 24 hours (short version: I liked it quite a bit, and T’s self-portrait is wondefully and interestingly uncompromising, but we spend so much of the novel in S’s head that I wasn’t thrilled by the reveal of the frame story. Then again, I’d also like to reread it, knowing whose voice I’m really hearing.)
To which I replied: Oh excellent. I too really want to reread it already knowing of Tabitha’s authorship, though I myself was thrilled by the reveal–partly because that sort of thing is a straight path to my heart, and partly because of what it revealed of Tabitha, not just in her own self-portrait and her interpretations of all the other characters, but also having the added dimension of her direct pov in the last chapter. I loved the extent to which Smith was always, throughout the novel, a creation (his general mysteriousness, all the stuff about the theatre, even the very fact that his name was Smith), and then the last chapter revealed the final (diegetic) layer of that creation: that he was created even in-world from Tabitha’s pen. I felt like the novel projected the reveal thematically, if not in any other way, and that was satisfying to me.
(What was less satisfying to me was the base fact that as a female novelist she chose to write about a male protagonist, though then again there are things to be said about her as a (white) woman choosing to write about a black (man) and the solidarity there wrt operating at once within and outside their worlds–he ability to pass as white and her family’s wealth and social standing each giving them a respective “in.”)
I’ll also admit that throughout the whole book Tabitha was the touchpoint character for me, and the character I kept waiting for whenever she wasn’t there, so to have her revealed as the central force of the novel was very satisfying in that way as well, and as you say, her portrayal being revealed as a self-portrait was a wonderful fascinating end(/beginning) to my feelings about her throughout the book.
inclineto added: And more spoilers…
I think there’s also commentary about who is permitted to recreate themselves, and how: men - and actresses, if only within the bounds of the theatre itself, and only until something happens to remind everyone else of who they were - can put on and set aside more expansive identities. Meanwhile prickly Tabitha, pretending to be disabled, imagines further constraints for herself.
(She reminds me of Katha Pollitt’s Penelope, in “Penelope Writes,” although of course Penelope has all too many suitors. But I think Tabitha would recognize her confinement and the anger that ends in “…And then / I dream in my abandon / I am tearing my whole house down.”)
(Original post, reply post)
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Unshockingly, I do think this regularly and will act accordingly--this is a beautiful review/rec for all of these, thank you!
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Reading some of the comments here made wonder why I have a 18K story about John and Jamie when half the time I forget Jamie exists, and sometimes I wish John would, too. I like them far better as friends than as John's unrequited love. John has such a full life there’s no need for Jamie as an unattainable love interest.
ETA: I finished the book because I have no sense of self restraint. I'm happy and sad at the same time because, well, history, but I have so, so many questions.
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I have such mixed feelings about John and Jamie, because on the one hand I absolutely wish that it was never a storyline that happened (and just kept happening), and John deserves so much better. On the other hand, I'm fascinated just enough by their relationship--there are so many almosts and might-have-beens with them, that once Gabaldon did make the choices she did, there's so much to work with when it comes to slight aus/missing scenes/etc. (And, fwiw, if you ever decide to post the 18k John and Jamie epic I will be first in line to read it.)
ETA: Just saw your edit, and god, I know. It's such a strange feeling to finish a 600-odd page book and immediately want more, but that's absolutely what it was for me. I could easily read another 600 pages of Donoghue writing about Anne.
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*spoiler alert*
I wonder if Donoghue regrets not making Anne's the main POV. Of all the main characters Anne is the one with the most interesting arc. We get to see the intimate journey to becoming her true self, whereas with Eliza it didn’t quite feel that way. I mean, is it wrong to feel frustrated by a real person's actions and find them lacking? It’s not the writing itself that failed to convince me of Eliza's intentions, but odd as it may sound it's the real person's actions that I struggle with. Eliza had good reasons to do as we did; I just felt she wanted something else. I can’t really fault her, but the contrast to Anne is so strong it hurts more, you know? To think of what could have been. Anne got to become her true self despite everything, but Eliza became a part.
ETA: Just saw your edit, and god, I know. It's such a strange feeling to finish a 600-odd page book and immediately want more, but that's absolutely what it was for me. I could easily read another 600 pages of Donoghue writing about Anne.
Right? Give me 600+ pages of Anne sculpting at Strawberry Hill now. Anne and Mary together in the Strawberry Hill gardens. Anne and Mary learning to swim together. Anne meeting Napoleon!
[Is it wrong that I kept thinking of how Lord John would fit in this version of London?]
My main problem with John and Jamie is that, as we've discussed, we never know exactly why John falls in love with Jamie. I can see John wanting Jamie, becoming his friend, but this lifelong love? Not so much. And yet I have no problem believing John still loves Hector. Gabaldon can be such a frustrating writer sometimes. There is a lot of material for AUs, but the text itself can be baffling sometimes.
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[Just back from the American War, trying to fit himself back into society. I would kill for a story about Lord John meeting Donoghue's Walpole, and I would love his and Anne's takes on each other--John seems to exist in a gay male world that is completely removed from even any thought of gay women, and I'd love to see that imploded.]
"Baffling" is honestly the best word for Gabaldon's writing much of the time. And I entirely agree about Hector--we know hardly anything about him, and yet I believe John's attachment to him much more than I believe his attachment to Jamie (who is, to be fair, the Gary Stu of Gary Stus--like technically we know things about him, but the cardboard cutout-ness is undeniable).
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[i checked and Walpole is mentioned towards the end of Brotherhood of the Blade, when John is back in England, convalescing, offering to use his influences in the case of Percy's eventual conviction at his sodomy court martial. It also says that John is aware of Walpole being gay —and how dangerous it is for him to speak up on Percy's behalf, but doubtful that Walpole knows about him. I loved how Walpole started talking about his exes on his deathbed in Life Mask and Anne goes O_o, by the way. It was such a funny moment in what was a very sad situation.
[Yes! I was just thinking about it yesterday, how in some of the historical f/f books I’ve read m/m relationships are always mentioned, if only in passing, where the opposite is rarely true. Granted, I was only thinking of Tipping the Velvet and Life Mask, but the point remains. The point being that women can't afford to entirely ignore men while men are free to live their life’s without giving women a second thought, that is. Also, Gabaldon has some serious issues regarding writing f/f relationships. I think she’s said she couldn’t do a good job because she’s not attracted to women. Idk. It’s a miracle Lord John is the way he is considering who's his author.
[Bottom line, I’d love to see John and Anne meet, what John thinks of f/f relationships in general. There is a lovely fic where Isobel ends up in a relationship with another woman while married to John, with his full knowledge and support, but it’s definitely something I’d like to see more of]
We get all of John's emotional reaction to Hector, all of the longing. And the ring! On that fact alone I should be able to believe that when John loves he *really* loves and doesn’t allow small details like Hector's death or not Jamie being into men get in the way of his love, but one rings true and the other one doesn’t.
I laughed at Jamie the cardboard character because it’s true.
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[You know, it crossed my mind that LJ might have mentioned Walpole, but I’d forgotten about that bit in Brotherhood. I love Donoghue’s version of Walpole so much, it’s such a great interpretation.
I’ve also noticed that f/f books tend to be significantly more likely to mention m/m or at least gay male characters than the other way around—the other example I can think of off the top of my head is Patience & Sarah. And yikes @ Gabaldon. YIKES.]
Exactly—we get more emotional explanation, we get the ring, and I think it makes more base intuitive sense as well (first love, etc. etc.). Though it does also help that he’s only a memory by the time we meet Lord John—it’s The Past and not something that has to be dealt with seemingly constantly, like Jamie does.