Recent reading

[luzula]

Maurice by E M Forster (written in 1913-14)
This was my audiobook during my last hike! It is beautifully written, and I definitely enjoyed it. I do wish Maurice and Alec luck together, but also I feel that "OMG someone who wants to sleep with me!" is perhaps not enough, especially on just a few days' acquaintance, to be sure that they will work together long-term. Also I feel like Clive got so much more interiority than Alec did?

Doom Castle by Neil Munro (1901)
Another Jacobite historical! One source says that the author in his day was regarded as a natural successor to Scott and Stevenson. This one is an enjoyable adventure novel with the Frenchman de Montaiglon coming to Argyllshire in pursuit of a Hanoverian spy who had behaved dastardly towards a woman, set in 1755, to which year the Appin murder has inexplicably been moved (perhaps he also followed RLS in inexplicably moving the Appin murder??). The book has a crumbling castle, romantic nature descriptions, a mysterious flute-player, a duel, a daring escape from prison, a fair maiden, etc. The beginning is a bit slow but makes up for it with good description; the het romance is predictable but inoffensive, and there's a brief slashy moment between him and the spy, but it doesn't go anywhere. I am looking forward to two of his other books: one that is set during the building of Wade's roads, and another in the late 18th century that involves the Loch Arkaig gold. These last are available on fadedpage.

Comments

[osprey_archer]

I'm now envisioning a Thursday Next-style novel about the Incredible Floating Appin Murder, which has become unmoored in Time because so many authors kept plunking it down wherever it was convenient for them.

[luzula]

In this book it wasn't even convenience! The murder just had a little cameo and nothing was dependent on what exact year it was. And the book was otherwise well researched, from what I can tell. Maybe it was actually a reference to RLS...

[osprey_archer]

Little Easter egg for RLS fans!

[chestnut_pod]

I feel like Forster's working-class love interests are usually fairly cardboard! (It makes me hope his relationship was better than he could write it!) At least Alec isn't soggy cardboard, like George Emerson.

[luzula]

Huh, interesting! I've never read any of his other books, so I don't have anything to compare to.

[regshoe]

Ooh, one of the contemporary reviews of Flight of the Heron compares Broster's writing to Neil Munro's—I was just thinking of looking him up :D That book sounds like great fun (from the excellent title onwards)! What are the titles of the other two?

And I'm glad to hear you enjoyed Maurice, though I agree about the relative under-development of Alec and Maurice/Alec. I think I'm more sympathetic to Clive than Forster intended, but perhaps I would like Alec better if we knew him better.

[luzula]

Oh, it's cool that a contemporary review remarked on that! What does the review say? The first one is The New Road and the other Children of Tempest.

I was sympathetic to Clive for much of the book! But I was puzzled by his sudden conversion to straightness--since we get to see inside his head, it seems like it's not just societal expectation? There's that part where he suddenly starts noticing women.

[regshoe]

It says, '[Broster] belongs to the school of Neil Munro in sympathetic interpretation of the Highland character and in a distinction of writing that is far above the average.'

Thank you for the titles! They'll all go on my to-read list :D

I think Clive is deeply, deeply repressed and self-deceiving, so much so that it does come across as weird and confusing. (The film makes it much more legible, having another gay character go to prison and showing Clive's conversion as a reaction to that). Have you read phantomtomato's recent review?—there are a lot of insightful thoughts on Clive in there.

[garonne]

I have a soft spot in my heart for Maurice, because I read it in my formative years at a time where I had pretty much no access to queer fiction (or indeed, access to info about which titles might have queer content). I just stumbled across it in the Classics section of the library.

But yes, I was not quite convinced by Maurice and Alec's relationship... Ha, relationship based on "OMG someone who wants to sleep with me! is a great way of summing up my thoughts on it!

[luzula]

Oh, interesting. Yes, I bet there are a lot of things in that Classics section flying under the radar. : ) Btw, in my head "Maurice" was pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable, I guess because I was thinking of it as a French name. But the audiobook reader of course didn't pronounce it that way!