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sophia_sol) wrote2012-03-09 03:06 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2012-03-09 03:06 pm
The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer
Latest book read! The Unknown Ajax, by Georgette Heyer!
It is a book I have mixed feelings about. To begin! I ADORE Hugo, the male half of the main romance. He is quite possibly my favourite Heyer hero ever? I cannot even begin to describe him, except to say that he is the OBJECTIVE AWESOMEST. Clearly!
Posssssibly it's just my love for Secretly Extremely Capable And Intelligent People Who Play Down How Extremely Capable And Intelligent They Are, and also my love of a person with a good sense of humour. He's just so -- *flails*
Anthea, the female half of the main romance, is awesome too, and excellent at calling Hugo on his ridiculousness. He can't gammon her!
But some of the other things about the book...yeah.
1. It is a book where we are supposed to be HAPPY with the conclusion where nobility can get away with whatever they want without consequences. Richmond is a DARRACOTT. It doesn't matter if he was involved in smuggling! He is a DARRACOTT and it is RIGHT AND GOOD to protect him from the arm of the law! Riiiiight.
2. Relatedly, it is a book where in the (admittedly awesome in other ways) ending, we are supposed to cheer the way the nobility pull the wool over the eyes of the ENTIRELY CORRECT police-type people? I felt really bad for Ottershaw! He was UPHOLDING THE LAW and he was RIGHT about Richmond being tangled up in unsavoury business, and then the Darracotts all make a COMPLETE FOOL of him. It is not cool!
3. And then there's the young woman Claud is bedding, and the language with which she is talked about -- slut-shaming, pure and simple. And containing an authorial assumption that a woman who engages in the behaviour she does could not possibly be a nice/good/sensible/reasonable human being. *SIGH*
And the first two points, which are about the awful classism that pervades Heyer's world (...and, admittedly, the real world at the time), make me all the more depressed since a large part of the point of the book is to not make assumptions about people because of their background! Hugo is a weaver's son from Yorkshire and everyone makes assumptions about him because of that, and then they are astonished to discover how AWESOME he actually is! But this excellent point is undermined by EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE BOOK. WHYYYYYY.
Georgette Heyer, yo. She writes really well, and her books are a lot of fun, but she's not always the most enlightened of souls. It's kind of frustrating. (eg, see also: the really awful Jewish stereotypes in the otherwise brilliant The Grand Sophy. I LOVE THE GRAND SOPHY SO MUCH. BUT THAT SCENE. D: )
It is a book I have mixed feelings about. To begin! I ADORE Hugo, the male half of the main romance. He is quite possibly my favourite Heyer hero ever? I cannot even begin to describe him, except to say that he is the OBJECTIVE AWESOMEST. Clearly!
Posssssibly it's just my love for Secretly Extremely Capable And Intelligent People Who Play Down How Extremely Capable And Intelligent They Are, and also my love of a person with a good sense of humour. He's just so -- *flails*
Anthea, the female half of the main romance, is awesome too, and excellent at calling Hugo on his ridiculousness. He can't gammon her!
But some of the other things about the book...yeah.
1. It is a book where we are supposed to be HAPPY with the conclusion where nobility can get away with whatever they want without consequences. Richmond is a DARRACOTT. It doesn't matter if he was involved in smuggling! He is a DARRACOTT and it is RIGHT AND GOOD to protect him from the arm of the law! Riiiiight.
2. Relatedly, it is a book where in the (admittedly awesome in other ways) ending, we are supposed to cheer the way the nobility pull the wool over the eyes of the ENTIRELY CORRECT police-type people? I felt really bad for Ottershaw! He was UPHOLDING THE LAW and he was RIGHT about Richmond being tangled up in unsavoury business, and then the Darracotts all make a COMPLETE FOOL of him. It is not cool!
3. And then there's the young woman Claud is bedding, and the language with which she is talked about -- slut-shaming, pure and simple. And containing an authorial assumption that a woman who engages in the behaviour she does could not possibly be a nice/good/sensible/reasonable human being. *SIGH*
And the first two points, which are about the awful classism that pervades Heyer's world (...and, admittedly, the real world at the time), make me all the more depressed since a large part of the point of the book is to not make assumptions about people because of their background! Hugo is a weaver's son from Yorkshire and everyone makes assumptions about him because of that, and then they are astonished to discover how AWESOME he actually is! But this excellent point is undermined by EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE BOOK. WHYYYYYY.
Georgette Heyer, yo. She writes really well, and her books are a lot of fun, but she's not always the most enlightened of souls. It's kind of frustrating. (eg, see also: the really awful Jewish stereotypes in the otherwise brilliant The Grand Sophy. I LOVE THE GRAND SOPHY SO MUCH. BUT THAT SCENE. D: )
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Plus I think it's a bit dangerous, actually, to let books of an earlier time have a free pass on things like this -- because NOT EVERYBODY of such eras did actually hold such viewpoints! There was certainly stuff being written during Heyer's time that did not have Heyer's classism or racism. So to say Heyer is only offensive because of her time does a disservice to authors of her time who WERE more enlightened.
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