how come we dance?
So I finally succumbed a few weeks --- months? ooh, last month --- back and got Meredith Duran's debut novel, The Duke Of Shadows. I'd been avoiding it like the plague cos yeah, it's set in the British Raj and even before I got back into Regency romances and discovered this fad for setting them in 'exotic locales' like Egypt or anywhere in the East, there was no freaking way I was touching anything set in the country of my birth at that particular highly fractious time. And then of course Loretta Chase wrote Don't Tempt Me and I went totally off my nut cos she thoroughly proved my suspicion of white women writing about brown women and being highly insulting about it.
But I'd read everything else by Meredith Duran and had been quietly talking myself down out of my rage so felt more up to it. And well, I figured if I could trust anyone to do it right, it could be her.
As it was, I was so wrapped up in Glee and wanting to write my own novel that I kinda didn't want to engage with it even though I recognised it was very very good. Once I finished all I could get of Glee, I fell right into it. And argh jesus.
The first part was honestly hard to read because it was so dark and so ugly with no hope of salvation, just dogged survival. Still managed to be beautifully hot plus amazingly engaging on the political front, even for me --- especially for me --- as someone who hates politics and HATES Indian politics. I was having a really powerful response to that stuff cos it tapped into everything I'd been forcefed in history lessons back in the mother country. It brought it all back, that roaring sense of injustice, of insulted pride, of --- dare I say it --- nationalism. I hated being forcefed that nationalism when I was there, wanting so much to rise above it and be part of the Western world. Now that I am, it's curious to realise how that nationalism sunk in even though I resisted it.
But I very much loved how Duran managed to be totally realistic as to the British Victorian attitudes of unthinking superiority and still be sympathetic to the Indian plight. God, she's so smart. Cos that darkness, that horrific darkness and angst was exactly what earned us the happy ending.
God, I love her heroines so much when they're angsty. They're so real. I related to Emma as fiercely as I related to Lydia but admittedly neither approach my almost pathological identification with Mina. But that authenticity of emotional violence, the fact that Duran is totally honest and unafraid about depicting female emotional violence is what makes her so priceless and valuable to me. She doesn't flinch at all from putting it right there on the page, not just the fear but the rage and the ways a highly intelligent female mind will twist to protect itself and its deeply wounded heart. God, I LOVE that. I love that yet again I actually feared a lack of happy ending. They both seemed so damaged, the chasm between them so huge.
But ah, what I adored best about Written On Your Skin was here too --- the fact that he opens himself to her so willingly, that he realises before her. Duran writes relationships I want --- where the respect and attention is pure and true, so authentic it doesn't even need to be vocalised either in dialogue or narrative. It's not cosmetic or a platitude, it's not the semblance of political correctness. It's not admiration or awe masquerading as respect. It's totally equal. And god, that never ceases to amaze and delight me, never loses its wonder and joy, the preciousness of it.
And she was very clever indeed cos just when I was sick at the British atrocity and then nearly at tears at the Indian atrocity, she pulled right back and reminded me that it's about racial violence, that men of all races are capable of equal horror. Instantly soothed me, transcended my upset.
And yeah, even here were sentences of pure perfection, more so in the sex scenes. The exquisite language and detail of Duran, the fact that she doesn't edit or censor herself on that score, the fact that she sometimes has these verbless clauses at the end of a sentence that prolly break any number of straitlaced logical grammatical rules but are always a moment of pure emotional perfection, perfectly encapsulatiing the emotion of the moment.
And heh, yes, I loved that I could translate the Hindi almost perfectly in my head. Some of it did feel a bit stilted but maybe that was just the novelty of being able to understand another italicised language on my own and not having to rely on the author to make it clear to me. That was quite awesome. I did put in a few commas, though.
Ha, I just realised who sent me off on the Liz Carlyle kick I've been on this month. It was Duran. She recs Connie Brockway, Loretta Chase and Liz Carlyle. And since I already love two out of three --- it's all right, Chase redeemed herself with her latest novel --- I figured I may as well try Liz Carlyle. And um, yeah. Five or so Liz Carlyle novels later, thanks Meredith. :p
But I'd read everything else by Meredith Duran and had been quietly talking myself down out of my rage so felt more up to it. And well, I figured if I could trust anyone to do it right, it could be her.
As it was, I was so wrapped up in Glee and wanting to write my own novel that I kinda didn't want to engage with it even though I recognised it was very very good. Once I finished all I could get of Glee, I fell right into it. And argh jesus.
The first part was honestly hard to read because it was so dark and so ugly with no hope of salvation, just dogged survival. Still managed to be beautifully hot plus amazingly engaging on the political front, even for me --- especially for me --- as someone who hates politics and HATES Indian politics. I was having a really powerful response to that stuff cos it tapped into everything I'd been forcefed in history lessons back in the mother country. It brought it all back, that roaring sense of injustice, of insulted pride, of --- dare I say it --- nationalism. I hated being forcefed that nationalism when I was there, wanting so much to rise above it and be part of the Western world. Now that I am, it's curious to realise how that nationalism sunk in even though I resisted it.
But I very much loved how Duran managed to be totally realistic as to the British Victorian attitudes of unthinking superiority and still be sympathetic to the Indian plight. God, she's so smart. Cos that darkness, that horrific darkness and angst was exactly what earned us the happy ending.
God, I love her heroines so much when they're angsty. They're so real. I related to Emma as fiercely as I related to Lydia but admittedly neither approach my almost pathological identification with Mina. But that authenticity of emotional violence, the fact that Duran is totally honest and unafraid about depicting female emotional violence is what makes her so priceless and valuable to me. She doesn't flinch at all from putting it right there on the page, not just the fear but the rage and the ways a highly intelligent female mind will twist to protect itself and its deeply wounded heart. God, I LOVE that. I love that yet again I actually feared a lack of happy ending. They both seemed so damaged, the chasm between them so huge.
But ah, what I adored best about Written On Your Skin was here too --- the fact that he opens himself to her so willingly, that he realises before her. Duran writes relationships I want --- where the respect and attention is pure and true, so authentic it doesn't even need to be vocalised either in dialogue or narrative. It's not cosmetic or a platitude, it's not the semblance of political correctness. It's not admiration or awe masquerading as respect. It's totally equal. And god, that never ceases to amaze and delight me, never loses its wonder and joy, the preciousness of it.
And she was very clever indeed cos just when I was sick at the British atrocity and then nearly at tears at the Indian atrocity, she pulled right back and reminded me that it's about racial violence, that men of all races are capable of equal horror. Instantly soothed me, transcended my upset.
And yeah, even here were sentences of pure perfection, more so in the sex scenes. The exquisite language and detail of Duran, the fact that she doesn't edit or censor herself on that score, the fact that she sometimes has these verbless clauses at the end of a sentence that prolly break any number of straitlaced logical grammatical rules but are always a moment of pure emotional perfection, perfectly encapsulatiing the emotion of the moment.
And heh, yes, I loved that I could translate the Hindi almost perfectly in my head. Some of it did feel a bit stilted but maybe that was just the novelty of being able to understand another italicised language on my own and not having to rely on the author to make it clear to me. That was quite awesome. I did put in a few commas, though.
Ha, I just realised who sent me off on the Liz Carlyle kick I've been on this month. It was Duran. She recs Connie Brockway, Loretta Chase and Liz Carlyle. And since I already love two out of three --- it's all right, Chase redeemed herself with her latest novel --- I figured I may as well try Liz Carlyle. And um, yeah. Five or so Liz Carlyle novels later, thanks Meredith. :p