Bits & pieces of awesome
I'm so glad so many authors are writing Victorian mysteries with a female protragonist. I didn't quite enjoy this novel as much as I enjoyed Deanna Raybourn's Silent in the Grave but the premise is similar.
A young woman of vast fortune marries a man who dies rather early on in their marriage (well, Julia's husband may have died a few years into the marriage but I can't remember) and it doesn't exactly come as a crushing blow to the widow due to lack of love. Widow spends the requisite year in mourning and then discovers something to imply that her husband may not have been what he seemed. Along the way she encounters a mysterious man whose motives remain unclear. Colin Hargreaves is not as brooding or troubled as Nicholas Brisbane but he is sufficientely mysterious that Emily isn't sure whether to trust him or to suspect him until the end.
Unlike Julia Grey prior to her marriage Emily was bored with the role Society relegated women too but she didn't expect or try to change anything. She married Philip to get away from her mother but had no notions of being anything other than what she was brought up to be. Julia's upbringing was a bit more eccentric and it was only during her marriage that she left the eccentricities of her family behind and started to reclaim them after she became a widow. Emily does the same.
What I like about this book is that while Emily chafes against the role she has to play in Society as a member of the aristocracy and a titled and wealthy widow and certainly begins to engage in things that Society deems unecessary for women such as learning ancient Greek, reading Homer, studying ancient philosophers (near the end of the novel she reads Aristophanes The Clouds and says she never laughed so much at something. We disagree on that. I read The Clouds and I don't recall laughing at anything. Then again I took 3 philosophy classes and don't remember laughing much at all during any of them) and refusing to enter Society even when her time of mourning is over. She distresses her mother by insisting she has no plans to remarry and give up her independence. At the same time she doesn't disregard all of Society's rules and nor does she want to. She may wear a loosened corset and rusticate on Santorini rather than take part in a Season but she's not going to suddenly decide to travel unaccompanied with a single gentleman or start walking around wearing pants or something. She's careful not to do anything that would actually damage her reputation. Of course it helps that she's titled and rich because something that might damage another's reputation merely makes her eccentric.
I found myself bored with the mystery, though. Perhaps it's because I knew the plots of the next 3 books and I knew Colin wasn't a bad guy (never mind that he has hero written all over him from his first introduction) but I grew bored with Emily's constant avowals that she couldn't trust him and her refusal to suspect the far shadier character until presented with incontrovertible evidence. Perhaps it's also because I have read many mysteries and I knew this was a mystery but so many acts that were clearly shady she blithely ignored.
She claimed to grow to love her husband after his death through his journal but refused to trust his judgment and distrusted Colin even though her dead husband trusted him and considered him his closest friend (he was his best man) but trusted a man she barely knew when he told her Colin wasn't to be trusted when he was in fact the person she should've distrusted.
Emily was allowed to be intelligent about so many things but displayed a remarkable lack of judgment or observation of character when it came to Andrew Palmer who ended up being the bad guy.
Also, this has always been something that as plagued me about English classes. I know that those with titles aren't expected to work. They have large inherited estates and any money they make comes from that and the Exchange or from gambling. If you're titled you can engage in a bit more and get away with it but trade is forbidden. But what about the mere Misters? People like Mr. Darcy? They have large estates, obviously, but they aren't nobility so where did the money come from to initially buy the estates? Someone, somewhere in the family tree had to have engaged in trade of some sort to make money. Unless they were just given it? Is it ok if your distant ancestors engaged in trade long enough ago that it's not considered "new" money and you can be free from the taint of unrespectable work?
In honor of new In Plain Sight tonight (which I won't get to see until tomorrow unless people are super quick about putting it places where I can get it) my favorite promo for tonight's episode.
Heh. I'm a genius. I just realized that there was probably some sort of website I could check the balance on those gift cards I got. As I suspected there's $10 on each of them which comes out to $100 which isn't too bad. I could get 2 shopping trips out of that or one really good one.
Every time I watch "Beginning of the End" I yell "kill it with fire" every time I see Mordred. Even if he wasn't going to, you know, bring about the down fall of Camelot that kid is just plain creepy. Goddamn that is one creepy little kid. I wonder what that casting call was like? "Seeking: young boy between ages of 8 and 11. Dark hair. Extremely creepy mien highly desirable."?
Have I mentioned yet how delighted I am that NBC is feeding my love for cheesy and bad disaster movies? The Storm stars The Beek, Luke Perry, Treat Williams, David James Elliot as a general (ahaha. haha. ha) (who is apparently getting in his disaster movie credits this summer) and Cameron Daddo. BEST DISASTER MOVIE CAST EVER. NBC loves me.
A young woman of vast fortune marries a man who dies rather early on in their marriage (well, Julia's husband may have died a few years into the marriage but I can't remember) and it doesn't exactly come as a crushing blow to the widow due to lack of love. Widow spends the requisite year in mourning and then discovers something to imply that her husband may not have been what he seemed. Along the way she encounters a mysterious man whose motives remain unclear. Colin Hargreaves is not as brooding or troubled as Nicholas Brisbane but he is sufficientely mysterious that Emily isn't sure whether to trust him or to suspect him until the end.
Unlike Julia Grey prior to her marriage Emily was bored with the role Society relegated women too but she didn't expect or try to change anything. She married Philip to get away from her mother but had no notions of being anything other than what she was brought up to be. Julia's upbringing was a bit more eccentric and it was only during her marriage that she left the eccentricities of her family behind and started to reclaim them after she became a widow. Emily does the same.
What I like about this book is that while Emily chafes against the role she has to play in Society as a member of the aristocracy and a titled and wealthy widow and certainly begins to engage in things that Society deems unecessary for women such as learning ancient Greek, reading Homer, studying ancient philosophers (near the end of the novel she reads Aristophanes The Clouds and says she never laughed so much at something. We disagree on that. I read The Clouds and I don't recall laughing at anything. Then again I took 3 philosophy classes and don't remember laughing much at all during any of them) and refusing to enter Society even when her time of mourning is over. She distresses her mother by insisting she has no plans to remarry and give up her independence. At the same time she doesn't disregard all of Society's rules and nor does she want to. She may wear a loosened corset and rusticate on Santorini rather than take part in a Season but she's not going to suddenly decide to travel unaccompanied with a single gentleman or start walking around wearing pants or something. She's careful not to do anything that would actually damage her reputation. Of course it helps that she's titled and rich because something that might damage another's reputation merely makes her eccentric.
I found myself bored with the mystery, though. Perhaps it's because I knew the plots of the next 3 books and I knew Colin wasn't a bad guy (never mind that he has hero written all over him from his first introduction) but I grew bored with Emily's constant avowals that she couldn't trust him and her refusal to suspect the far shadier character until presented with incontrovertible evidence. Perhaps it's also because I have read many mysteries and I knew this was a mystery but so many acts that were clearly shady she blithely ignored.
She claimed to grow to love her husband after his death through his journal but refused to trust his judgment and distrusted Colin even though her dead husband trusted him and considered him his closest friend (he was his best man) but trusted a man she barely knew when he told her Colin wasn't to be trusted when he was in fact the person she should've distrusted.
Emily was allowed to be intelligent about so many things but displayed a remarkable lack of judgment or observation of character when it came to Andrew Palmer who ended up being the bad guy.
Also, this has always been something that as plagued me about English classes. I know that those with titles aren't expected to work. They have large inherited estates and any money they make comes from that and the Exchange or from gambling. If you're titled you can engage in a bit more and get away with it but trade is forbidden. But what about the mere Misters? People like Mr. Darcy? They have large estates, obviously, but they aren't nobility so where did the money come from to initially buy the estates? Someone, somewhere in the family tree had to have engaged in trade of some sort to make money. Unless they were just given it? Is it ok if your distant ancestors engaged in trade long enough ago that it's not considered "new" money and you can be free from the taint of unrespectable work?
Click to viewIn honor of new In Plain Sight tonight (which I won't get to see until tomorrow unless people are super quick about putting it places where I can get it) my favorite promo for tonight's episode.
Heh. I'm a genius. I just realized that there was probably some sort of website I could check the balance on those gift cards I got. As I suspected there's $10 on each of them which comes out to $100 which isn't too bad. I could get 2 shopping trips out of that or one really good one.
Every time I watch "Beginning of the End" I yell "kill it with fire" every time I see Mordred. Even if he wasn't going to, you know, bring about the down fall of Camelot that kid is just plain creepy. Goddamn that is one creepy little kid. I wonder what that casting call was like? "Seeking: young boy between ages of 8 and 11. Dark hair. Extremely creepy mien highly desirable."?
Have I mentioned yet how delighted I am that NBC is feeding my love for cheesy and bad disaster movies? The Storm stars The Beek, Luke Perry, Treat Williams, David James Elliot as a general (ahaha. haha. ha) (who is apparently getting in his disaster movie credits this summer) and Cameron Daddo. BEST DISASTER MOVIE CAST EVER. NBC loves me.