Recent reading
Apr. 26th, 2020 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaThe Wounded Name by D K Broster (1922)
Oh my god. Wow. Yes, I think this is indeed even more slashy than Flight of the Heron, just on account of how much time the m/m couple spends onpage together (basically, the whole book). Although I still didn't love it as much as FotH (that would be difficult...) and I think it would be much less satisfying to write fic for. For most of the book I also thought I didn't like it as much as Mr Rowl, but it won me over towards the end and now I like them equally. I think the reason I didn't like it as much at first is that it takes itself so seriously, with little of the Heyer-esque light-heartedness of Mr Rowl, and also without Keith's wonderful sense of humor (Keith, I love you ♥).
The setting is Bourbon Restoration France and the war of the Hundred Days, and the characters are French Royalist aristocrats, which I did not find that interesting/appealing, but OTOH the setting is not as developed as in FotH and anyway it's all an excuse for slash. The relationship dynamic is quite different from Keith and Ewen's, though otherwise we get all Broster's favorite tropes such as hurt-comfort and dilemmas around personal honor. Laurent hero-worships Aymar, and Aymar depends on Laurent for support. There is an (I kid you not!) 120-page section of pure hurt-comfort where Laurent slowly nurses Aymar back to health and we gradually learn more about what Aymar actually did to end up wounded and why he's so anguished about it. In the second half of this section, I think you could probably insert sex scenes without changing the surrounding text, or their dynamic. I mean, they're already cuddling and being affectionate with each other, and Laurent is thinking stuff like [Aymar] was looking at him with that quiet and immensely attractive smile.
So then we get the het romance, which happens to contain a trope I hate: people who grew up together as children in the same household (in this case they are cousins) and then become a romantic couple when they are adults--and it leans into it, too, with phrases like he was her lover, but almost her brother, too. Weirdly, the slash and the het romance just kind of...coexist? And then Broster drops the het romance like a hot potato for a while, in favor of a deliciously drawn-out courtroom scene and an adorable duel (yes, adorable!) which is possibly my favorite scene in the book. Ha, if she had written my FotH sequel, the courtroom scenes in that one would probably have been a lot longer!
feroxargentea observed that Broster seemed strangely reluctant to actually write any battle scenes, given that FotH is set during a war, and that is true of this book too. Waterloo happens far off-stage while Aymar and Laurent have anguished confessions and share a bed in a cave. Got to focus on the important stuff, after all.
Sadly, The Wounded Name does not exist online anywhere, as far as I can see, and as a physical book it's pretty rare (mine has Broster's signature in it! : D ). Maybe I'll have to record it at some point just to make it available for posterity...
Oh my god. Wow. Yes, I think this is indeed even more slashy than Flight of the Heron, just on account of how much time the m/m couple spends onpage together (basically, the whole book). Although I still didn't love it as much as FotH (that would be difficult...) and I think it would be much less satisfying to write fic for. For most of the book I also thought I didn't like it as much as Mr Rowl, but it won me over towards the end and now I like them equally. I think the reason I didn't like it as much at first is that it takes itself so seriously, with little of the Heyer-esque light-heartedness of Mr Rowl, and also without Keith's wonderful sense of humor (Keith, I love you ♥).
The setting is Bourbon Restoration France and the war of the Hundred Days, and the characters are French Royalist aristocrats, which I did not find that interesting/appealing, but OTOH the setting is not as developed as in FotH and anyway it's all an excuse for slash. The relationship dynamic is quite different from Keith and Ewen's, though otherwise we get all Broster's favorite tropes such as hurt-comfort and dilemmas around personal honor. Laurent hero-worships Aymar, and Aymar depends on Laurent for support. There is an (I kid you not!) 120-page section of pure hurt-comfort where Laurent slowly nurses Aymar back to health and we gradually learn more about what Aymar actually did to end up wounded and why he's so anguished about it. In the second half of this section, I think you could probably insert sex scenes without changing the surrounding text, or their dynamic. I mean, they're already cuddling and being affectionate with each other, and Laurent is thinking stuff like [Aymar] was looking at him with that quiet and immensely attractive smile.
So then we get the het romance, which happens to contain a trope I hate: people who grew up together as children in the same household (in this case they are cousins) and then become a romantic couple when they are adults--and it leans into it, too, with phrases like he was her lover, but almost her brother, too. Weirdly, the slash and the het romance just kind of...coexist? And then Broster drops the het romance like a hot potato for a while, in favor of a deliciously drawn-out courtroom scene and an adorable duel (yes, adorable!) which is possibly my favorite scene in the book. Ha, if she had written my FotH sequel, the courtroom scenes in that one would probably have been a lot longer!
feroxargentea observed that Broster seemed strangely reluctant to actually write any battle scenes, given that FotH is set during a war, and that is true of this book too. Waterloo happens far off-stage while Aymar and Laurent have anguished confessions and share a bed in a cave. Got to focus on the important stuff, after all. Sadly, The Wounded Name does not exist online anywhere, as far as I can see, and as a physical book it's pretty rare (mine has Broster's signature in it! : D ). Maybe I'll have to record it at some point just to make it available for posterity...
(no subject)
Date: 2020-04-26 05:52 pm (UTC)Yeah, FotH is not a story about the '45 at all--the emotional beats are on Keith and Ewen's relationship, not on the important parts of the war. Though there are much more historical details, and much more attention is paid to the setting than in The Wounded Name.