Musings on The Wounded Name

[luzula]

Some of you may enjoy the comment where I search for how many times the speech verb "ejaculate" is used in various 18th century novels and draw conclusions, and mildred_of_midgard's preceding comment on the usage of "ejaculate" over time.

During my recording of The Wounded Name, I am really noticing how different Laurent is from various other Broster characters, in that he doesn't care about his military duty. It would have been fairly easy for him to escape from the place where he and Aymar are prisoners, but does he? No, he stays to nurse Aymar. And later when he's free, does he return to the army? Nope, he stays with Aymar with some transparent excuse for why he's not leaving. To be clear, I too would rather stay and take care of my friend than go off and fight for Louis XVIII against the Bonapartists! But I wonder why Broster does not use Laurent's duty as a way of heightening the dilemma in the book? Perhaps because if Laurent's duty were properly invoked, he would have no real excuse to stay for so long. But Aymar, who does care about military duty, doesn't seem to mind that Laurent is basically deserting (though I'm not sure if it is technically deserting when he was a volunteer to begin with).

Also, it makes for an interesting contrast with Keith Windham, for example—who is, of course, a professional. Perhaps the general to whom Laurent was aide-de-camp rolled his eyes and did not actually miss this aristocratic dilettante. I am reminded of Duffy's characterization of the stereotypical aide-de-camp as "young, pretty, well-born, and mounted on a fast horse".

Comments

[ride_4ever]

To be clear, I too would rather stay and take care of my friend than go off and fight for Louis XVIII against the Bonapartists! I'm sure this is true for many of us. *g*

[luzula]

Indeed! : )

[regshoe]

Thank you for linking that comment—fascinating stuff :D I notice Broster uses 'ejaculate' twice in FotH, although she's much more fond of 'exclaim'. Hmm.

Anyway, that's a good observation about Laurent! Yes, when you put it that way it seems strange that Broster doesn't make more of the potential conflict with duty, though from Laurent's own point of view it's really very in-character for him to care about Aymar and absolutely nothing else. :P But it's an interesting contrast with FotH, especially, where both main characters have honour/duty-related dilemmas and drama to contend with. Thinking about it, I think that's another way that FotH is a better-developed and balanced take on a lot of the same ideas as TWN.

Perhaps the general to whom Laurent was aide-de-camp rolled his eyes and did not actually miss this aristocratic dilettante.

Oh dear—I can't imagine he'd have been as valuable in his profession as Keith, certainly... :D

[luzula]

TWN was written after SIatF and TYP, which both have duty-bound characters, so it's not like she hadn't written that type of character before. Maybe she just wanted a different character and relationship dynamic this time!

[sanguinity]

I did enjoy that comment thread, thank you! I like the observation/theory that the dual meaning might have given the word risque overtones, even when the 'blurting' meaning was still in common use.

*goes and looks up what an aide-de-camp is* So, like a flag lieutenant, then? And I'm amused to see that Ewen meets at least some of the criteria for an aide-de-camp! (I don't think we ever hear much about his horse, excepting that it's by implication better than what he could afford to ride after he came back from France...)

Wounded Name was already on my to-read list, but obviously this bumps it up a little higher!

[luzula]

Hee, you're the Navy person--I couldn't have said what a flag lieutenant was, despite having read all of Patrick O'Brian! I think it's the difference between just reading an Age of Sail canon and doing research to write fic for it...

Yes, I've made that observation about Ewen before. : )

Thanks to garonne, The Wounded Name is on Gutenberg, or you can wait for my audiobook if you want!

How is your Lost Honour longfic going, by the way?

[sanguinity]

You mean you don't know all the things about everything? I find that difficult to believe.

Flag lieutenant: a lieutenant who serves directly under a flag officer (a commodore or admiral) and outside of whatever shipboard chain of command may exist (if the flag officer is installed on a flagship) and executes whatever make-it-so-ing the flag officer may require. I'm a little unclear on what the hour-to-hour duties entail (they probably vary somewhat by flag officer), but I've seen some suggestions that flag lieutenants tended to run wealthier/prettier/higher-born than your usual run of lieutenant.

Wounded name: I didn't realize we had garonne to think for that! I downloaded it when you said you were gonna do an audiobook, but my tbr pile is a sad mess. You might well have finished recording the audiobook by the time I get to it.

Lost Honour: THEY HAVE FINALLY LEFT DISHONOUR ISLAND. \o/ It's a little unclear whether I'm now writing the epilogue or the final chapter before the epilogue (what I had thought would be a flashback is now 2K of we'll-just-tell-it-as-it-happens), but I imagine all that will come clear in another few thousand words. Either way, I'm still on track to publish this year, knock wood and the creek don't rise.

[luzula]

Ha ha, no, I do not know all the things. : P

Thanks for the explanation! I mean, I suppose that is about what I would have guessed from the name.

Glad you're making progress with the fic. : ) I aim to read that Hornblower book you recced me so that I can better appreciate the fic when you post it...

[sanguinity]

Oo, nice. I hope you enjoy it! "Lost Honour" is set at the extreme opposite end of Hornblower's career, but I have more than one shoutout to Lieutenant Hornblower in there, partly because they're both set in the West Indies, and partly because Lieutenant is so foundational to a slash reading of Hornblower and Bush.

[luzula]

Well, the library has it, so now I have no excuse! *reserves it*

[sanguinity]

Do let me know what you think!

[luzula]

By the way, how can the Articles of War for the army have no prohibition on aiding the enemy?? Neither the 1722 or the 1749 ones do (which I am sure you have also got via tgarnsl). I mean, these ones for the Navy definitely do. The prohibition on mutiny and sedition, or disobeying orders, doesn't really cover the same ground, or does it?

[sanguinity]

That does seem odd. I wonder -- given how many regulations are "written in the blood" as the saying goes (i.e., authorities often don't think/bother to prohibit a thing until after the thing became a problem), I wonder if sometime after 1749 there was a celebrated case of someone aiding the enemy, and when command tried to throw the book at them, they found they had no book to throw? Thus leading to the amending of the book/Articles?

Obviously that's raw speculation, but something to keep an eye out for, I would think.

[garonne]

I have a collection of plaintext files of novels from different centuries, so I had a quick look at the number of times I could find some variant of the word 'ejaculat*'

century, number of words, number of occurences of ejaculat* | %

17, 224348, 0, 0.000000

18, 720303, 5, 0.000694

19, 5719410, 76, 0.001329

20, 2016617, 18, 0.000893

21, 1621855, 1, 0.000062

They all relate to speaking, except the 21st century one, which is in a sex scene!

It's not very big sample, and also not really an unbiased sample. It's a collection of books from my own library which I then converted to plain text and cleaned up (removing table of contents etc.) so I could do this sort of analysis. Still, interesting to see how well it matches with what you were discussing in those comments!

Also, haha, I dread to think what Keith would make of Laurent if they met :P

[luzula]

This comment is very you. : D Anyway, the 19th century frequency is actually only twice as large as the 18th century one. But yeah, less common, anyway.

Hee, Keith would roll his eyes and think that Laurent is a young puppy...

[feroxargentea]

I'm guessing Laurent's general encouraged him to take his time coming back. Because, entertaining tho' that kind of wildly overwrought romantic nobleman/inbred nincompoop is in novels, he'd be an encumbrance to anyone trying to fight an Actual War, where asking an enemy officer a few relevant questions isn't considered torture or infamous tyranny, and where you can't take a month off to hold your new crush's hand :D

(also, he does *very slightly* remind me of Copenhagen in Warhorses of Letters.)

[luzula]

How could you dismiss Aymar as just a crush? *gasp* Aymar is the most admirable human being ever, and could not ever do anything wrong.

Hee, I can see the likeness to Copenhagen...though he reminds me more of a puppy. Just wait until the latter half of the book, where he fights the most adorable duel for Aymar's sake. I mean, "adorable" is not a word I usually apply to duels, but this one really is.

[feroxargentea]

Every time I think The Wounded Name can't get any more romantic and hurt-comforty, it does! (also, huddling for warmth \o/) It's tempting to read ahead, but I'm resisting temptation.

[luzula]

Indeed! It rivals an epic hurt/comfort fanfic. *g*

I should be able to keep up this posting speed even during my trip, so that you don't have to resort to reading ahead. I have a backlog of recorded material…