regency romances deserve flail posts too!
Oh my god, Cotillion by Georgette Heyer is SO GREAT I might actually expire on the spot if I don't get to flail about about it. I can't remember the last time I read something so much fun with such a delighted, stupid smile on my face. Quite literally. It's a good thing no one walked past my cubicle during lunch; they might have been concerned.
Let me pontificate on its fabulousness, please:
I freely admit I love Regency romances. I went through a phase of reading them in middle school/early high school, got distracted by fic and fantasy, and have since been on the lookout for good ones to get me back into the genre. Julia Quinn was my favorite author back then: she was witty and wrote personable characters who were relatable; she hit on all the fun tropes and managed to include the requisite ~passionate embraces~ while maintaining an overall charming and lighthearted note.
I've heard for ages that Georgette Heyer was the queen master (read: HBIC) when it came to Regency romances though, so I combed the 'net for top recs and found out that Cotillion was a wide favorite. It had arranged marriage. Did I leap on that like a bullet train out of hell? Are my analogies always terrible? Yes and yes.
Here's the blurb:
A most unusual hero
Freddy is immensely rich, of course, and not bad-looking, but he's mild-mannered, a bit hapless-not anything like his virile, handsome, rakish cousin Jack...
A heroine in a difficult situation
Young Kitty Charing stands to inherit a vast fortune from her irascible and eccentric guardian-provided she marries one of his great-nephews...
A sham betrothal
No sooner does Kitty arrive in London then the race for her hand begins, but between confirmed rakes and bumbling affections, Kitty needs a daring scheme.
Here is me fangirling the book like it solved world hunger, except less like that and more like the book just hit every one of my delight buttons (I told you my analogies were in dire straits):
I admit it took me a bit to get past the first chapter of the book, but once Freddy was introduced, the book really hit its stride.
THERE IS NO HERO I LOVE AS MUCH AS FREDDY. /dramatic overstatement
He is a fop. A dandy. One of those frivolous young male creatures that feature in your stereotypical Regency romance who cares too much about his clothes and presentation and is drawn as a comparison to our Dark, Brooding Hero who can't be bothered with such fripperies because he is too busy being rakish, devilish, roguish, and other adjectives ending in -ish. Freddy is described as "inarticulate" and "incoherent" a lot - his father makes fun of him for being terribly dim, but fondly. Essentially, Freddy is decent-looking and cheerful, a nice guy who is neither particularly brilliant nor particularly dashing. He's friendly, though, and welcome to all parties because, as the book puts it:
[A] numerous circle of male acquaintances held him i nconsiderable affection, and with the ladies he was a prime favourite. The most sought-after beauty was pleased to stand up with so graceful a dancer; any lady desirous of redocrating her drawing-room was anxious for his advice; no hostess considered her invitation-list complete without his name. His presence did not, of course, confer on a party the distinction that Mr Brummell's did, but he was a much more agreeable guest, never arriving long after he had been despaired of and then departing within twenty minutes, and never startling the old-fashioned by uttering calculated impertinences. He could be depended upon, too. He would not stand against the wall, refusing to dance; and no hostess, presenting him to the plainest damsel in the room, had the smallst fear that he would excuse himself, or abandon his partner at the earliest opportunity. He was an excellent escort for any lady deprived at the last moment of her lord's attendance, for his appearance could not but add to her consequence, and he was always nice to a fault in every attention to her comfort. Nor was the most jealous husband suspicious of him. 'Oh, Freddy Standen!' said these green-eyed gentlemen. 'In that case, ma'am, very well!'
He is like the deliberately average member of the ton, rather than the stand-offish (see, another -ish adjectivie!) and reclusive Hero typically featured. He's pretty good with horses, but not dangerously so. He boxes ever so often, but is not one of those whipcord lean (except with bulging thighs of thunder) men who take out their dark years of angst in the gym. He is genial and amiable and close with his family; he is terribly involved in his looks and enjoys his creature comforts and rather appalled at overexerting himself.
He is definitely not his virile, handsome, rakish cousin Jack.
Who is the stereotypical Regency romance's lazily wicked hero-type. Except he's also a rather annoying asshole, as most of those hero-types would be in reality.
And Kitty, OH KITTY. She is a delightful heroine. She is not a bluestocking. She is not a nobly suffering young girl who is the poor relation or ward of someone affluent in the ton. Well, she is, sort of. But she's also a prospective heiress who wants the luxuries and excitement of London. To find a heroine written for once as someone eager to join the masses of girls in frilly dresses is so refreshing, because the repitition of so-different-from-the-rest-of-the-crowd-so-unique can get endless and tiresome. Not all of us are beleaguered spinsters with tempestuous passions hidden beneath our drab hair, alas. Some of us do rather enjoy the fineries of life, especially if denied them before, and the lights and glitz and ability to wear pretty things are attractive! "Ooh, shiny" is an apt descriptor, I feel.
Yet Kitty is different, too, because she's an eager, naive young tourist from the country to the city. I don't know how no one's touched on this before but it's so fitting, now that I've read it. Kitty has always heard about London, of course, but now that she's finally gotten a chance to see everything she's only heard of, she jumps on the chance. She buys a guide book of London's must-see sights and forces Freddy to accompany her to them all: Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Elgin's Marbles, the Tower of London, etc. And Freddy is so horrified at the idea of an extended sightseeing trip when all he really wants to do is enjoy his general everyday activities - nothing so wearying and educational, thank you!
It's hilarious and this was one of the sections I couldn't stop grinning at while reading. How so very human!
Freddy's family is also amazingly entertaining. His mother is a doting mother in sort of a distracted, featherbrained way. She means so well and is fond of her husband. She has an unerring eye for fashion and is very nice, if not terribly bright. And this is written as a GOOD thing. Which, in the era and context the story takes place, it would be! (Also the era during which the story was written may have had some influence, being hte 1950s. Still, my point stands.)
Freddy's father is just this side of sardonic - he makes a lot of fondly sarcastic comments that goes over the heads of his wife and children. For example:
Lady Legerwood, whose conversation during dinner had meandered between the sufferings of her younger children, and the predicament in which her married daughter [Meg] found herself, looked doubtfully at [her son]. 'Hit on what, dear Freddy?'
'Meg,' replied Freddy succiently. 'Going to visit her.'
'Are you, my love? But-Oh, now you put me in mind of it I recall taht she is going to Almack's tonight, with Emily Cowper!'
'Find her there,' said Freddy.
'Well, of course, dear-But you are not dressed for Almack's!'
'Go back to my lodgings and change. Plenty of time!' said Freddy. 'Must see Meg!'
'This brotherly devotion is most affecting,' remarked Lord Legerwood. 'May we know why it has so suddenly attacked you?'
'It ain't anything of the sort, sir!' said Freddy, justly indignant. 'Told you I'd hit on something. Came to me with the cheese-cakes!'
'What a tribute to the cook!' said his father.
and upon hearing Freddy's plan, which is not actually terrible:
Lord Legerwood, in the act of raising his claret-glass to his lips, lowered it again,a nd regarded his son almost with awe. 'These unsuspected depths, Frederick-! I have wronged you!'
'Oh, I don't know that, sir!' Freddy said modestly. 'I ain't clever, like Charlie, but i ain't such a sapskull as you think!'
'I have always known that you could not be, my dear boy.'
Mostly meaning that you couldn't possibly be as dim as I think you.
I DO LOVE HIM.
I can't stop laughing at this book. I can't stop enjoying how lighthearted and silly it is, how it celebrates frivolous things in life like they're not terrible. It's not a crime to enjoy things that are not Serious and Deeply Meaningful. I love how the book refutes stereotypes (can it have? when I feel like most of the stereotypes I read were actually written later? hm) by celebrating the more "average" hero and heroine rather than the oh-so-unique one who is so lost and longsuffering for the era in which they find themselves. There is nothing wrong with those books either, of course, and I haved loved many of them, but they tend to dominate the market, which is why Cotillion is such an enjoyable change of pace for me.
I posted on my RL journal a while ago some thoughts on reading,
People read for different reasons. I realized fairly recently that I don't usually read to engage my mind; I read to engage my id, essentially. I read for the most part to be emotionally satisfied, not mentally stimulated. This is why fic appeals to me so much, why it can hold my attention far easier than many a novel. This is why I love clichés and tried-and-true tropes; this is why I enjoy rereads of stories I know well and love. Then again, sometimes I do want the thoughtful cognitive engagement and that's when I make more concentrated effort to read what we consider literature - things that are challenging, intellectually or emotionally or both. I'll read the news, online articles, blog posts, and so on.
Most of the time, though, if you give me a choice between the latest Pulitzer winner and a retelling of a fairy tale, I'll probably pick the fairy tale. If you give me a choice between Crime & Punishment (which I really did enjoy) and a 20k Clex fic, I'll probably pick the Clex fic.
I think this book is the perfect celebration of things that are fun, that hit my emotional kinks, without necessarily stirring the waters of Great Literature. And so what? I love it for that.
Cotillion, I must get my hands on a copy of you for my own shelf. Libraries are fantastic, but I must own this book. It's already leaped to the top of my favorite fun books with The Princess Bride and Covenants and lots and lots of what people may call children's books but what I call the best things everrrrr (including, for example, the Macdonald Hall series by Gordon Korman and The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine ♥♥♥).
I AM ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THIS BOOK, BUT I HAD TO STOP TO MAKE AN EXCITED POST, OR DIE. It says a lot, doesn't it? I don't expect the second half to disappoint at all. Lead me into the romance that comes of this sham betrothal! I anticipate with glee.
Georgette Heyer is truly the master HBIC when it comes to Regency romances. I can't wait to read her other stuff.
Let me pontificate on its fabulousness, please:
I freely admit I love Regency romances. I went through a phase of reading them in middle school/early high school, got distracted by fic and fantasy, and have since been on the lookout for good ones to get me back into the genre. Julia Quinn was my favorite author back then: she was witty and wrote personable characters who were relatable; she hit on all the fun tropes and managed to include the requisite ~passionate embraces~ while maintaining an overall charming and lighthearted note.
I've heard for ages that Georgette Heyer was the queen master (read: HBIC) when it came to Regency romances though, so I combed the 'net for top recs and found out that Cotillion was a wide favorite. It had arranged marriage. Did I leap on that like a bullet train out of hell? Are my analogies always terrible? Yes and yes.
Here's the blurb:
A most unusual hero
Freddy is immensely rich, of course, and not bad-looking, but he's mild-mannered, a bit hapless-not anything like his virile, handsome, rakish cousin Jack...
A heroine in a difficult situation
Young Kitty Charing stands to inherit a vast fortune from her irascible and eccentric guardian-provided she marries one of his great-nephews...
A sham betrothal
No sooner does Kitty arrive in London then the race for her hand begins, but between confirmed rakes and bumbling affections, Kitty needs a daring scheme.
Here is me fangirling the book like it solved world hunger, except less like that and more like the book just hit every one of my delight buttons (I told you my analogies were in dire straits):
I admit it took me a bit to get past the first chapter of the book, but once Freddy was introduced, the book really hit its stride.
THERE IS NO HERO I LOVE AS MUCH AS FREDDY. /dramatic overstatement
He is a fop. A dandy. One of those frivolous young male creatures that feature in your stereotypical Regency romance who cares too much about his clothes and presentation and is drawn as a comparison to our Dark, Brooding Hero who can't be bothered with such fripperies because he is too busy being rakish, devilish, roguish, and other adjectives ending in -ish. Freddy is described as "inarticulate" and "incoherent" a lot - his father makes fun of him for being terribly dim, but fondly. Essentially, Freddy is decent-looking and cheerful, a nice guy who is neither particularly brilliant nor particularly dashing. He's friendly, though, and welcome to all parties because, as the book puts it:
[A] numerous circle of male acquaintances held him i nconsiderable affection, and with the ladies he was a prime favourite. The most sought-after beauty was pleased to stand up with so graceful a dancer; any lady desirous of redocrating her drawing-room was anxious for his advice; no hostess considered her invitation-list complete without his name. His presence did not, of course, confer on a party the distinction that Mr Brummell's did, but he was a much more agreeable guest, never arriving long after he had been despaired of and then departing within twenty minutes, and never startling the old-fashioned by uttering calculated impertinences. He could be depended upon, too. He would not stand against the wall, refusing to dance; and no hostess, presenting him to the plainest damsel in the room, had the smallst fear that he would excuse himself, or abandon his partner at the earliest opportunity. He was an excellent escort for any lady deprived at the last moment of her lord's attendance, for his appearance could not but add to her consequence, and he was always nice to a fault in every attention to her comfort. Nor was the most jealous husband suspicious of him. 'Oh, Freddy Standen!' said these green-eyed gentlemen. 'In that case, ma'am, very well!'
He is like the deliberately average member of the ton, rather than the stand-offish (see, another -ish adjectivie!) and reclusive Hero typically featured. He's pretty good with horses, but not dangerously so. He boxes ever so often, but is not one of those whipcord lean (except with bulging thighs of thunder) men who take out their dark years of angst in the gym. He is genial and amiable and close with his family; he is terribly involved in his looks and enjoys his creature comforts and rather appalled at overexerting himself.
He is definitely not his virile, handsome, rakish cousin Jack.
Who is the stereotypical Regency romance's lazily wicked hero-type. Except he's also a rather annoying asshole, as most of those hero-types would be in reality.
And Kitty, OH KITTY. She is a delightful heroine. She is not a bluestocking. She is not a nobly suffering young girl who is the poor relation or ward of someone affluent in the ton. Well, she is, sort of. But she's also a prospective heiress who wants the luxuries and excitement of London. To find a heroine written for once as someone eager to join the masses of girls in frilly dresses is so refreshing, because the repitition of so-different-from-the-rest-of-the-crowd-so-unique can get endless and tiresome. Not all of us are beleaguered spinsters with tempestuous passions hidden beneath our drab hair, alas. Some of us do rather enjoy the fineries of life, especially if denied them before, and the lights and glitz and ability to wear pretty things are attractive! "Ooh, shiny" is an apt descriptor, I feel.
Yet Kitty is different, too, because she's an eager, naive young tourist from the country to the city. I don't know how no one's touched on this before but it's so fitting, now that I've read it. Kitty has always heard about London, of course, but now that she's finally gotten a chance to see everything she's only heard of, she jumps on the chance. She buys a guide book of London's must-see sights and forces Freddy to accompany her to them all: Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Elgin's Marbles, the Tower of London, etc. And Freddy is so horrified at the idea of an extended sightseeing trip when all he really wants to do is enjoy his general everyday activities - nothing so wearying and educational, thank you!
It's hilarious and this was one of the sections I couldn't stop grinning at while reading. How so very human!
Freddy's family is also amazingly entertaining. His mother is a doting mother in sort of a distracted, featherbrained way. She means so well and is fond of her husband. She has an unerring eye for fashion and is very nice, if not terribly bright. And this is written as a GOOD thing. Which, in the era and context the story takes place, it would be! (Also the era during which the story was written may have had some influence, being hte 1950s. Still, my point stands.)
Freddy's father is just this side of sardonic - he makes a lot of fondly sarcastic comments that goes over the heads of his wife and children. For example:
Lady Legerwood, whose conversation during dinner had meandered between the sufferings of her younger children, and the predicament in which her married daughter [Meg] found herself, looked doubtfully at [her son]. 'Hit on what, dear Freddy?'
'Meg,' replied Freddy succiently. 'Going to visit her.'
'Are you, my love? But-Oh, now you put me in mind of it I recall taht she is going to Almack's tonight, with Emily Cowper!'
'Find her there,' said Freddy.
'Well, of course, dear-But you are not dressed for Almack's!'
'Go back to my lodgings and change. Plenty of time!' said Freddy. 'Must see Meg!'
'This brotherly devotion is most affecting,' remarked Lord Legerwood. 'May we know why it has so suddenly attacked you?'
'It ain't anything of the sort, sir!' said Freddy, justly indignant. 'Told you I'd hit on something. Came to me with the cheese-cakes!'
'What a tribute to the cook!' said his father.
and upon hearing Freddy's plan, which is not actually terrible:
Lord Legerwood, in the act of raising his claret-glass to his lips, lowered it again,a nd regarded his son almost with awe. 'These unsuspected depths, Frederick-! I have wronged you!'
'Oh, I don't know that, sir!' Freddy said modestly. 'I ain't clever, like Charlie, but i ain't such a sapskull as you think!'
'I have always known that you could not be, my dear boy.'
Mostly meaning that you couldn't possibly be as dim as I think you.
I DO LOVE HIM.
I can't stop laughing at this book. I can't stop enjoying how lighthearted and silly it is, how it celebrates frivolous things in life like they're not terrible. It's not a crime to enjoy things that are not Serious and Deeply Meaningful. I love how the book refutes stereotypes (can it have? when I feel like most of the stereotypes I read were actually written later? hm) by celebrating the more "average" hero and heroine rather than the oh-so-unique one who is so lost and longsuffering for the era in which they find themselves. There is nothing wrong with those books either, of course, and I haved loved many of them, but they tend to dominate the market, which is why Cotillion is such an enjoyable change of pace for me.
I posted on my RL journal a while ago some thoughts on reading,
People read for different reasons. I realized fairly recently that I don't usually read to engage my mind; I read to engage my id, essentially. I read for the most part to be emotionally satisfied, not mentally stimulated. This is why fic appeals to me so much, why it can hold my attention far easier than many a novel. This is why I love clichés and tried-and-true tropes; this is why I enjoy rereads of stories I know well and love. Then again, sometimes I do want the thoughtful cognitive engagement and that's when I make more concentrated effort to read what we consider literature - things that are challenging, intellectually or emotionally or both. I'll read the news, online articles, blog posts, and so on.
Most of the time, though, if you give me a choice between the latest Pulitzer winner and a retelling of a fairy tale, I'll probably pick the fairy tale. If you give me a choice between Crime & Punishment (which I really did enjoy) and a 20k Clex fic, I'll probably pick the Clex fic.
I think this book is the perfect celebration of things that are fun, that hit my emotional kinks, without necessarily stirring the waters of Great Literature. And so what? I love it for that.
Cotillion, I must get my hands on a copy of you for my own shelf. Libraries are fantastic, but I must own this book. It's already leaped to the top of my favorite fun books with The Princess Bride and Covenants and lots and lots of what people may call children's books but what I call the best things everrrrr (including, for example, the Macdonald Hall series by Gordon Korman and The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine ♥♥♥).
I AM ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THIS BOOK, BUT I HAD TO STOP TO MAKE AN EXCITED POST, OR DIE. It says a lot, doesn't it? I don't expect the second half to disappoint at all. Lead me into the romance that comes of this sham betrothal! I anticipate with glee.
Georgette Heyer is truly the master HBIC when it comes to Regency romances. I can't wait to read her other stuff.