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The Ghosts of Glencoe by Mollie Hunter (1966)
Oh, this is excellent! I loved it; highly recommended to fans of D K Broster, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Kidnapped. It is not quite 'what if Keith and Ewen, but at the massacre of Glencoe?' but it certainly has elements of that. Robert Stewart is a young ensign stationed at Fort William in the winter of 1691-92, and is one of the party of soldiers quartered among the Glencoe MacDonalds—but he has no idea about the atrocities that are planned. During those two weeks, he makes friends with the chief's son Alasdair, and when he gets his orders, he has to decide whether to defy them or obey (I think we can all guess what he does, but the manner in which he does it is still very suspenseful!). Like Keith, young Robert ardently wants a military career and to follow in his father's footsteps, but unlike Keith, he has divided loyalties from the start. He's an Appin Stewart, but he grew up abroad with his father, who served in William of Orange's Scottish regiment in the Low Countries. His parents are dead when the story begins. Besides the excellent conflict of loyalties, this is also a great adventure story of winter survival while being chased by redcoats. The very end is perhaps resolved a little too easily, but then it is a YA book. It's available on archive.org, but it's also not hard to get hold of cheap secondhand copies. Go on, you can buy it for $1!
Emma by Jane Austen (1815)
Finishing off my Austen re-listen, with this excellent reading by Elizabeth Klett from Librivox. Emma is one of my least favorite Austens. To start with the positive, it does have the most femslash possibility, since she pours a lot of energy into relationships with female companions. If I could give her an alternate ending, it would be for her to find a female companion who can hold her own against Emma's strong personality and challenge her a bit--and of course Emma has the economic means to live like that. But I don't think any of the other women in the book would work. There are also some wonderfully observed social situations, such as the one with the in-law friction between Emma's father and brother-in-law, where Emma and her sister do all the emotional labor of smoothing things over.
And then to what I don't enjoy: it's not that I actually like Emma that much, but to have the whole plot set up to teach her a lesson and then for her to marry the older man who was always right when Emma was wrong, it just grates on me. Ugh, and then he talks patronizingly about what Emma was like when she was a child, and says that he fell in love with her when she was thirteen (when he was what, thirty?). I don't ship Jane Fairfax/Frank Churchill either--I think he's quite cruel to her during that extended period of secret engagement. Also, there's more snobbishness than in for example Persuasion. However, it's not like it's a hardship to do the dishes and do my physical therapy with Austen prose in my ears, so I don't regret the relisten!
My Austen ranking, based purely on enjoyment: Pride & Prejudice - Persuasion - Mansfield Park - Northanger Abbey - Sense & Sensibility - Emma. What is yours?
Oh, this is excellent! I loved it; highly recommended to fans of D K Broster, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Kidnapped. It is not quite 'what if Keith and Ewen, but at the massacre of Glencoe?' but it certainly has elements of that. Robert Stewart is a young ensign stationed at Fort William in the winter of 1691-92, and is one of the party of soldiers quartered among the Glencoe MacDonalds—but he has no idea about the atrocities that are planned. During those two weeks, he makes friends with the chief's son Alasdair, and when he gets his orders, he has to decide whether to defy them or obey (I think we can all guess what he does, but the manner in which he does it is still very suspenseful!). Like Keith, young Robert ardently wants a military career and to follow in his father's footsteps, but unlike Keith, he has divided loyalties from the start. He's an Appin Stewart, but he grew up abroad with his father, who served in William of Orange's Scottish regiment in the Low Countries. His parents are dead when the story begins. Besides the excellent conflict of loyalties, this is also a great adventure story of winter survival while being chased by redcoats. The very end is perhaps resolved a little too easily, but then it is a YA book. It's available on archive.org, but it's also not hard to get hold of cheap secondhand copies. Go on, you can buy it for $1!
Emma by Jane Austen (1815)
Finishing off my Austen re-listen, with this excellent reading by Elizabeth Klett from Librivox. Emma is one of my least favorite Austens. To start with the positive, it does have the most femslash possibility, since she pours a lot of energy into relationships with female companions. If I could give her an alternate ending, it would be for her to find a female companion who can hold her own against Emma's strong personality and challenge her a bit--and of course Emma has the economic means to live like that. But I don't think any of the other women in the book would work. There are also some wonderfully observed social situations, such as the one with the in-law friction between Emma's father and brother-in-law, where Emma and her sister do all the emotional labor of smoothing things over.
And then to what I don't enjoy: it's not that I actually like Emma that much, but to have the whole plot set up to teach her a lesson and then for her to marry the older man who was always right when Emma was wrong, it just grates on me. Ugh, and then he talks patronizingly about what Emma was like when she was a child, and says that he fell in love with her when she was thirteen (when he was what, thirty?). I don't ship Jane Fairfax/Frank Churchill either--I think he's quite cruel to her during that extended period of secret engagement. Also, there's more snobbishness than in for example Persuasion. However, it's not like it's a hardship to do the dishes and do my physical therapy with Austen prose in my ears, so I don't regret the relisten!
My Austen ranking, based purely on enjoyment: Pride & Prejudice - Persuasion - Mansfield Park - Northanger Abbey - Sense & Sensibility - Emma. What is yours?
totally optional query, disregard if busy/disclined!
(I like Roman military history and military history generally, open to other things!)
Re: totally optional query, disregard if busy/disclined!
Given my current fannish interests, I've mostly been reading her 17th century British novels lately. But whatever period she writes in, what I love about her is her beautiful prose, her detailed settings, and the slashy relationships, mostly of the brothers-in-arms or loyalty-to-liege-lord type, but also occasionally enemies-to-friends/lovers.
ETA: Since you're into military history generally, several of the 17th century ones might also be interesting: The Rider on the White Horse is set during the English Civil War, and Bonnie Dundee during the 1689 Jacobite uprising in Scotland.
Re: totally optional query, disregard if busy/disclined!
optional follow-up question: Oh - with the 17th century British ones, is this a case where I should be able to read a Wikipedia overview to get the gist of the historical events, or would I need more background to follow the books? (I'm USAn and I had a somewhat atypical education because I went to an international high school in S Korea, so there's this giant gap in my European history knowledge between ~1500 or so and, uh, the Great War.)
(Mind you, an excuse to read up on 17th century history sounds delightful. :D )
Re: totally optional query, disregard if busy/disclined!
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but to have the whole plot set up to teach her a lesson and then for her to marry the older man who was always right when Emma was wrong
The moderator of the Synchronous Emma project always linked to a bunch of the academic literature as we went through the novel. Some of that literature questioned whether Emma (the novel) really had a happy ending, given your complaint here. Others questioned whether Emma (the character) really was reformed/subdued by Knightley in the end, or whether we are meant to consider that desirable. Those latter readings seemed a stretch to me, but it was good to see that scholars of the text have been struggling with that ending, too.
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Yessss, mission accomplished! \o/ You won't regret it.
I mean, the ending also attempts to reform Knightley in the end, not just Emma, with all his protestations that he was insufferable in trying to teach her lessons. But I'm still not buying it. Interesting to hear that scholars have struggled with it, too.
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I forget whether the fic-writing folks who are fond of Mary Crawford from Mansfield Park have ever shipped her with Emma. I'm not a fan of her canonically either (from what I remember, MP is one I've read less often or recently), but she might fit the bill for someone of the right strength and temperament to hold her own and challenge Emma. (I am failing to find any such thing on AO3...)
Or what about Elizabeth Bennet or Charlotte Lucas from Pride & Prejudice? Maybe a little too sensible? It's hard to think of a character (of any gender) who is sensible enough to be good for Emma, without being too sensible to get along with her.
Come to think of it, maybe Catherine from Northanger Abbey? She has a similar "heart is in the right place, but overenthusiastic about certain things and oblivious about others" thing going on to Emma, except that the obliviousness is in different directions so they could potentially be good for spotting each other's blind spots.
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I went through the Emma f/f tag, and besides the canon women, people have written Emma/Caroline Bingley, and Emma/Maria Rushworth. I'm going to check out one of the Emma/Caroline Bingley fics, because I've read other good fic by the author.
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I also don't think Mr. Knightly is always right. I think he's just as subject to caprice as most of the other characters, but because it's filtered through Emma's PoV, that's not as clear initially. We start to see more as the narrative goes on. A lot of the book is telling you one thing, and doing another.
And yeah, the femslash.
ETA: And to the point of embarrassment squick. Weirdly, even though I'm the sort of person who hides behind her wife during embarrassing moments in romcoms, and can't watch shows like The Office at all, and I can see why a good chunk of Emma is about humiliation and shame... it's never bothered me? I'll have to think about why.
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And yes, I did find myself thinking that this would be a very different story from Jane Fairfax's perspective (or Harriet's, for that matter).
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My first two are because I really like people suffering stoically in silence before their happy ending :-)
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My first two are because I really like people suffering stoically in silence before their happy ending :-)
Awww, Persuasion is perfect for that!
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Northanger --> P&P --> the gorgeous and satisfying end of Persuasion --> Emma --> Sense & Sensibility --> the slow beginning of Persuasion --> --> --> --> Mansfield Park (sorry Mansfield Park).
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My Austen ranking is pretty similar to yours! I would put Mansfield Park first, and maybe Persuasion above Pride & Prejudice depending on what mood I'm in? I have not read Emma for a long time, probably because I didn't like it much the first time, but I think my feelings about it were similar too.
I'm enjoying the discussion in the comments here about femslash possibilities for Emma :D
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Hmm. Alasdair (the chief's son) is married and also quite worried about his wife during parts of the book. There's also a lieutenant (Francis) who is friends with Robert, but he's pursuing Robert's female cousin. And there's a Macdonald clansman whose life Robert saves during a hunt, and who swears him brotherhood, but he's a quite minor character. OTOH, Robert has no canonical het love interest.
Interesting! Yes, I had gathered that you like Mansfield Park a lot.