Recent reading
Aug. 5th, 2021 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaThe Sheep-Stealers by Violet Jacob (1902)
So I wanted to see what else Violet Jacob had written. She is the author of Flemington (1911), a very slashy book set in Scotland in 1745; D K Broster dedicated Flight of the Heron to her, so clearly she must have been inspired by it. I hope they met and fangirled together at some point...
This is the only other novel of Jacob's available as an ebook (the others are scanned on archive.org). It's her first novel and is set in Wales in the 1840's, during the Rebecca riots where people smashed up toll-gates because they were angry about raised tolls. The characters are Rhys, a prosperous farmer who takes a leading role in a local riot and becomes an outlaw because of it; Mary, his soon-to-be-estranged lover bearing his illegitimate child; George, a poor but honest man forced by debt into working for a gang of sheep-stealers, with whom Rhys takes refuge; Harry, who is in the yeomanry and is the son of a local squire; and Isoline, a young woman with whom both Harry and Rhys fall in love. The book was very readable, but after the ending I couldn't quite decide what I thought.
I was annoyed by how the book treats Isoline. I did not particularly like her when we were in her POV, but the degree to which the book heaped disapproval on her was a bit overdone! She is young and shallow and a bit mercenary, and likes pretty dresses and being admired by men; older and wiser characters as well as the narrative voice boldly assert that her character is fixed for life and she will be forever shallow and cannot possibly change, and will inevitably make her future husband unhappy. But, like, she's nineteen. (OTOH, the narrative lays no blame on Mary for her illegitimate child.)
So is the book slashy? Yes, in the beginning it is, and in the same way as Flemington: Harry and Rhys meet by chance and Harry tries to convince Rhys to join the yeomanry; Rhys, on his part, gives Harry false information about where the riot is rumoured to take place. Harry "was strongly attracted by this man and longed to see more of him." After he sees Rhys in the riot Harry is furious, and there is a dramatic chase on horseback. This obviously has the potential to continue, but the plot goes in another direction, with various het romance plotlines and individual reversals of fortune. Much of the het romance is not very romantic as such, but focuses on how blinded one can be by love--although there is also one happy couple. Two of the characters end up happy, two are "happy" but heavily foreshadowed not to suit each other, and one tragically dies--a death more tragic than in Flemington, I would say, because it was not necessary and was less the outcome of a deliberate choice by the character.
So I wanted to see what else Violet Jacob had written. She is the author of Flemington (1911), a very slashy book set in Scotland in 1745; D K Broster dedicated Flight of the Heron to her, so clearly she must have been inspired by it. I hope they met and fangirled together at some point...
This is the only other novel of Jacob's available as an ebook (the others are scanned on archive.org). It's her first novel and is set in Wales in the 1840's, during the Rebecca riots where people smashed up toll-gates because they were angry about raised tolls. The characters are Rhys, a prosperous farmer who takes a leading role in a local riot and becomes an outlaw because of it; Mary, his soon-to-be-estranged lover bearing his illegitimate child; George, a poor but honest man forced by debt into working for a gang of sheep-stealers, with whom Rhys takes refuge; Harry, who is in the yeomanry and is the son of a local squire; and Isoline, a young woman with whom both Harry and Rhys fall in love. The book was very readable, but after the ending I couldn't quite decide what I thought.
I was annoyed by how the book treats Isoline. I did not particularly like her when we were in her POV, but the degree to which the book heaped disapproval on her was a bit overdone! She is young and shallow and a bit mercenary, and likes pretty dresses and being admired by men; older and wiser characters as well as the narrative voice boldly assert that her character is fixed for life and she will be forever shallow and cannot possibly change, and will inevitably make her future husband unhappy. But, like, she's nineteen. (OTOH, the narrative lays no blame on Mary for her illegitimate child.)
So is the book slashy? Yes, in the beginning it is, and in the same way as Flemington: Harry and Rhys meet by chance and Harry tries to convince Rhys to join the yeomanry; Rhys, on his part, gives Harry false information about where the riot is rumoured to take place. Harry "was strongly attracted by this man and longed to see more of him." After he sees Rhys in the riot Harry is furious, and there is a dramatic chase on horseback. This obviously has the potential to continue, but the plot goes in another direction, with various het romance plotlines and individual reversals of fortune. Much of the het romance is not very romantic as such, but focuses on how blinded one can be by love--although there is also one happy couple. Two of the characters end up happy, two are "happy" but heavily foreshadowed not to suit each other, and one tragically dies--a death more tragic than in Flemington, I would say, because it was not necessary and was less the outcome of a deliberate choice by the character.
