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chocolatepot) wrote2011-11-24 11:34 pm
chocolatepot) wrote2011-11-24 11:34 pm
It's like I can only read books I already know I like
So I'm reading The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, because I saw it in the drugstore and I'm pretty sure it's about a female Scarlet Pimpernel, basically. And I'm just kind of annoyed with it in a sort of vague way because it stands for all the books I keep picking up and putting down lately. What it all boils down to is stereotypes/tropes that just don't fit the time period. More because they don't fit the time period than because they're clichés, because I honestly don't care about clichés being clichés as long as they make sense in context.
This is especially in regards to men grumbling about "matchmaking Mamas" and all of that. It just feels a lot more like "I'm writing this attitude because men/historical men are supposed to feel this way" than "this character feels this way as a result of his cultural context and personality". Through many levels of society during the Georgian period, men generally wanted to get married. Marriage was an optimal state. It was a sign of adulthood. It gave you heirs. It gave you someone to take care of your home - whether you were living in rented rooms and needed someone to physically take care of things or had a large estate and your wife was managing over-servants who managed under-servants. It also gave you someone to be friendly and companionable with while not restricting your extramarital sexings at all. (Dreadfully unromantic, sorry.) I can totally buy particular characters not going along with this - maybe their parents' marriage was terrible, maybe they have a dark secret, whatevs - but not wanting to get married is always treated as the default, not just for the hero but for everyone he talks to, and it's just gotten to the point where it knocks me out of the story so hard because I can't believe the characters are who they're supposed to be anymore. (Not to mention, I find the "matchmaking Mamas" trope to be skeevy in the way it's often played out.)
I could go into religion and morality in stern older characters and how it seems vastly more like people born in 1860 than 1760, but I'm quite tired now. This whole post is basically a repeat of another I've made, I know, but I'm just really frustrated with how everything I try to read lately fails so hard at making me think I'm reading about people in the time period they're supposed to be in. That's what I want, I want to read something where I can imagine that's actually how life was.
This is especially in regards to men grumbling about "matchmaking Mamas" and all of that. It just feels a lot more like "I'm writing this attitude because men/historical men are supposed to feel this way" than "this character feels this way as a result of his cultural context and personality". Through many levels of society during the Georgian period, men generally wanted to get married. Marriage was an optimal state. It was a sign of adulthood. It gave you heirs. It gave you someone to take care of your home - whether you were living in rented rooms and needed someone to physically take care of things or had a large estate and your wife was managing over-servants who managed under-servants. It also gave you someone to be friendly and companionable with while not restricting your extramarital sexings at all. (Dreadfully unromantic, sorry.) I can totally buy particular characters not going along with this - maybe their parents' marriage was terrible, maybe they have a dark secret, whatevs - but not wanting to get married is always treated as the default, not just for the hero but for everyone he talks to, and it's just gotten to the point where it knocks me out of the story so hard because I can't believe the characters are who they're supposed to be anymore. (Not to mention, I find the "matchmaking Mamas" trope to be skeevy in the way it's often played out.)
I could go into religion and morality in stern older characters and how it seems vastly more like people born in 1860 than 1760, but I'm quite tired now. This whole post is basically a repeat of another I've made, I know, but I'm just really frustrated with how everything I try to read lately fails so hard at making me think I'm reading about people in the time period they're supposed to be in. That's what I want, I want to read something where I can imagine that's actually how life was.
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I'm trying to read A Factory for Cunning instead because, while I found it a bit impenetrable the last time I tried, it really captures the crime and dirt of the period. I opened it to a random page and found her claiming to be the Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which is pretty cool.