Return to Night: Chapters 6 and 7
Plenty to discuss this week, I think! I started making an absolutely ginormous list of quotes and then decided that attempting to mention All the Things in my introductory post was really the opposite of helpful. The quotes may make an appearance in a comment later.
So... now that Julian is conscious and (apparently) in his right mind, what do we make of this diffident, boyish, aesthetic young man as a romantic lead? Some people really can't stand him and I'm really fascinated to see if anyone reading for the first time is going to have that reaction. Renault doesn't allow him to demonstrate much maturity to start off with, certainly, though his kiss under the mistletoe has a charming poise to it.
It turns out that in the world of romance novels there's all this meta about the appeal to readers of "alpha males" v. "beta males". (No, not omegaverse, get your mind out of the gutter.) A small (?) sampling:
http://angelaquarles.com/2012/02/08/non-alphas-need-not-apply-can-only-alpha-males-get-published-in-romancelandia/
http://www.freyaduquesne.com/2011/alpha-male-beta-male
http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion/the-super-sizing-of-the-alpha-male/
http://rikaashton.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/a-lesson-in-romance-terminology-alpha-beta-and-gamma/
http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2011/10/how-alpha-is-too-alpha
http://sgcardin.blogspot.com/2010/04/genre-tuesday-types-of-romantic-men.html
We can probably all agree that Julian isn't an alpha male. But I'm not sure that he fits into the beta category either - too handsome, too wealthy, too talented to be the boy next door. He is what he is.
And Hilary is still totally into him, whatever she may want to tell herself.
If there is a "person next door" in this novel, it's probably Lisa! Hilary continues to observe Lisa closely and in rather sensual terms - "she had a kind of lassitude which seemed, curiously, to have left her vitality undimmed" - and has "a pleasant feeling that the quiet progress of their friendship had advanced a little." Their relationship is one of the unsung pleasures of this book.
Other topics that we may want to discuss:
• Hilary's summer holiday in Sweden, "cheerful young Viking" and all.
• Mrs. Fleming's gift - why so provocative to Hilary?
• The revelation that Julian has been searching for Hilary all this time. Caves. Visions. That stuff.
• All the class and gender related drama at the Christmas party (Nuit de Lesbos indeed).
• Lisa and Rupert's backstory.
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/557532.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So... now that Julian is conscious and (apparently) in his right mind, what do we make of this diffident, boyish, aesthetic young man as a romantic lead? Some people really can't stand him and I'm really fascinated to see if anyone reading for the first time is going to have that reaction. Renault doesn't allow him to demonstrate much maturity to start off with, certainly, though his kiss under the mistletoe has a charming poise to it.
It turns out that in the world of romance novels there's all this meta about the appeal to readers of "alpha males" v. "beta males". (No, not omegaverse, get your mind out of the gutter.) A small (?) sampling:
http://angelaquarles.com/2012/02/08/non-alphas-need-not-apply-can-only-alpha-males-get-published-in-romancelandia/
http://www.freyaduquesne.com/2011/alpha-male-beta-male
http://dearauthor.com/features/letters-of-opinion/the-super-sizing-of-the-alpha-male/
http://rikaashton.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/a-lesson-in-romance-terminology-alpha-beta-and-gamma/
http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2011/10/how-alpha-is-too-alpha
http://sgcardin.blogspot.com/2010/04/genre-tuesday-types-of-romantic-men.html
We can probably all agree that Julian isn't an alpha male. But I'm not sure that he fits into the beta category either - too handsome, too wealthy, too talented to be the boy next door. He is what he is.
And Hilary is still totally into him, whatever she may want to tell herself.
If there is a "person next door" in this novel, it's probably Lisa! Hilary continues to observe Lisa closely and in rather sensual terms - "she had a kind of lassitude which seemed, curiously, to have left her vitality undimmed" - and has "a pleasant feeling that the quiet progress of their friendship had advanced a little." Their relationship is one of the unsung pleasures of this book.
Other topics that we may want to discuss:
• Hilary's summer holiday in Sweden, "cheerful young Viking" and all.
• Mrs. Fleming's gift - why so provocative to Hilary?
• The revelation that Julian has been searching for Hilary all this time. Caves. Visions. That stuff.
• All the class and gender related drama at the Christmas party (Nuit de Lesbos indeed).
• Lisa and Rupert's backstory.
This entry was originally posted at http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/557532.html. Please comment there using OpenID.