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cimoreneThe last two Heyers I bought!
Black Sheep is another book about a mature, independent lady of breeding and fortune living in Bath and acting as a duenna who mistakenly regards herself as a spinster (see Lady of Quality, Bath Tangle, etc).
In Black Sheep, the fashionable and respectable Miss Abigail Wendover lives with her foolish 40-sth sister Selina (combining the Foolish Blabbermouth character with the Hypochondriac), raising their teenie niece, Fanny, and enjoying a very high social standing in Bath society. Her life is disrupted by Fanny's first fortune hunter, a gazetted rake by the name of Calverleigh. Then it's disrupted even more by the arrival of the fortune hunter's uncle Miles Calverleigh, the shocking Black Sheep of the family. The family fortunes ruined, Miles has been in India for decades, acquiring a "swarthy" complexion and a sloppy habit of dress which prevents anyone from realising until quite late that he has in fact made his fortune there - everyone except the reader considers him poor for most of the book. Heyer is very fond of dramatic irony, however, and by retiring into the nephew's point of view for an important early interview between them, she contrives to point up unsubtly Miles's wealth without admitting to it literally. His character as a Heyer Hero is most memorable for rudeness. Rudeness is a great schtick that works well for him coupled to his charming smile, both on the page and in society, where he tends to be excused his eccentricity - and in terms of the book itself, his spirited bouts of argument - witty banter and anger both - with the heroine are utterly enchanting and LOL-worthy.
As for Abby, the heroine, she's the youngest child in a family of very silly siblings, and the only one with a sharp, literate intellect, a position recalling to mind Elizabeth Bennett in certain ways, as well as other Heyer heroines. Bored in her daily life, starved for intellectual stimulation, and rather unrealistically resigned to being an old maid as her feminist bent values independence above domesticity, Abby cherishes a secret romantic hope of love, but has almost given up on it. Indeed, her heart has always been cold in the past, and her excessive intellectualisation, calling to mind the fanon gestalt of Spock, creates her internal conflict which is in fact the central driving conflict of the book though not the A-plot: can she trust her own heart? Abby's conflict isn't primarily concerned with the opinion of society but with her own struggles with overpowering emotions whose very existence she is used to denying. Several solitary scenes paint a portrait of her agitation as she doubts whether she is feeling anything at all, whether it may be love, what love is and what that means.
This conflict is why I regard Black Sheep as the most mature and contemporarily relevant of Heyer's historicals. The conflict so nearly mirrors the post-modern intellectual dilemma and conceptualisations of romance - while finishing, of course, very romantically. It's an optimistic and unapologetically pro-romance view, of course, but one which doesn't ignore the fundamental question which the romance genre begs. In addressing the issue, this novel actually reminds me strongly (and felicitously) of many of the smartest, most sophisticated and post-modern romances available in slash fandom. The self-awareness and intelligence of slash romance is, after all, what separates it from the Harlequins.
This isn't to say Black Sheep is without flaw. It's a slim volume compared to other novels in the same edition, and feels a little rushed in the second half, besides being rather transparent in its creation of dramatic irony, as Heyer tends to be. But since it has no thriller plot in particular, and doesn't rely on that irony for very much actual drama, I didn't find it particularly distracting.
The Quiet Gentleman belongs to the constellation of Heyers that includes The Unknown Ajax and even Venetia (which approaches the formula from the heroine's side, mostly): the heir returning to his birthright, surrounded at the country estate by extended family. It's also, like Regency Buck, got a THRILLER PLOT!! pasted on yey. Heyer's skills lie far more in investigations of murder after the fact than in thrillers (see the ponderous mysteries Penhallow and Footsteps in the Dark), but TQG avoids getting tangled in its own traces as Regency Buck does by concentrating more on Heyer's own Regency High Life~ formula. (Warning: mystery plot spoiled within.)
Of course, the repeated attempts on the life of Gervase Frant, the Earl of St Erth, are not particularly scary. The text doesn't go for the creation of fear that you find in a traditional thriller; Gervase always seems to be in control of events, as Heyer's Heroes usually are. This is perhaps a shame, because the import of the plot is a bit less transparent than Heyer's past thrillers have been, although she chooses basically the same character to vilify as in Lady of Quality, which makes it a bit predictable.
(The villain, a cousin in the line of succession in both LoQ and TQG, has the same basic characterisation, the same superficial role of Supporter in the plot, and the same quiet, early introduction. Bernard Taverner and Theo Frant - they even sort of sound like the same type of person, or is that just me? Bernard and Theo are hard-working, quiet, mousy-brown names, aren't they?
But back to the hero! Where Black Sheep's Miles Calverleigh is a black-haired, sloppy rake with no social graces, Gervase Frant is the opposite. Heyer loves her pretty, effeminate, meticulously dressed heroes. Gervase is just such a hunk of burning love, and is furthermore described as blond and slight. His manners are deceptively mild, too, just like the manners of so many Heyer Heroes. He is, in fact, her favourite Type. But don't worry that he's actually un-manly, because he's a bruising rider, a capital whip, and much more skilled with a rapier than his hunting-mad half-brother Martin (a charmingly unmannered, sulky teenie who I'd slash with someone at the drop of a hat, if I could in fact find anyone to match. He's of much the same type as Richmond in The Unknown Ajax).
(Theo's fate is sealed, from my point of view, when a secondary sidekick appears on the scene, an old army friend named Lucius. Who needs *two* supportive friends? And it's always clear that Lucy is blameless, because he stands to gain nothing by Gervase's death.)
On to the heroine! This is where The Quiet Gentleman really shines. The heroine gets far less POV than is usual for a Heyer Heroine, and the primary narrative skims over her a great deal in the beginning. She is short and curvy and mouse-brown. Possessed of spectacles and masterful at Arrangements (particularly for a large ball held mid-book), she starts off apparently as St Erth's asshole step-mom's companion, though it is soon clear that she is in fact a houseguest of gentle birth. Her parents being novelists, her mother a feminist and her father some kind of Marxist or something, Miss Morville's practicality is stated to be a disappointment to them as it apparently is contradictory to any bookishness (which she is lacking). She considers herself beneath St Erth, once her crush is brought up later in the book, on grounds of deficient prettiness (not birth, because, as Elizabeth Bennett says, 'He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal') and fortune.
Miss Morville's practicality is delightful for novelty, when taken as an outstanding quality and brought out for humour value. In the denoument, St Erth characterises it as "adorable", which is quite funny - practicality being mocked as out of place? It really says something about the genre, doesn't it, or about the Heroine's role in general? It's hard to say whether that particular direction of meta was Heyer's intent or not. It might bear further thought.
Black Sheep is another book about a mature, independent lady of breeding and fortune living in Bath and acting as a duenna who mistakenly regards herself as a spinster (see Lady of Quality, Bath Tangle, etc).
In Black Sheep, the fashionable and respectable Miss Abigail Wendover lives with her foolish 40-sth sister Selina (combining the Foolish Blabbermouth character with the Hypochondriac), raising their teenie niece, Fanny, and enjoying a very high social standing in Bath society. Her life is disrupted by Fanny's first fortune hunter, a gazetted rake by the name of Calverleigh. Then it's disrupted even more by the arrival of the fortune hunter's uncle Miles Calverleigh, the shocking Black Sheep of the family. The family fortunes ruined, Miles has been in India for decades, acquiring a "swarthy" complexion and a sloppy habit of dress which prevents anyone from realising until quite late that he has in fact made his fortune there - everyone except the reader considers him poor for most of the book. Heyer is very fond of dramatic irony, however, and by retiring into the nephew's point of view for an important early interview between them, she contrives to point up unsubtly Miles's wealth without admitting to it literally. His character as a Heyer Hero is most memorable for rudeness. Rudeness is a great schtick that works well for him coupled to his charming smile, both on the page and in society, where he tends to be excused his eccentricity - and in terms of the book itself, his spirited bouts of argument - witty banter and anger both - with the heroine are utterly enchanting and LOL-worthy.
As for Abby, the heroine, she's the youngest child in a family of very silly siblings, and the only one with a sharp, literate intellect, a position recalling to mind Elizabeth Bennett in certain ways, as well as other Heyer heroines. Bored in her daily life, starved for intellectual stimulation, and rather unrealistically resigned to being an old maid as her feminist bent values independence above domesticity, Abby cherishes a secret romantic hope of love, but has almost given up on it. Indeed, her heart has always been cold in the past, and her excessive intellectualisation, calling to mind the fanon gestalt of Spock, creates her internal conflict which is in fact the central driving conflict of the book though not the A-plot: can she trust her own heart? Abby's conflict isn't primarily concerned with the opinion of society but with her own struggles with overpowering emotions whose very existence she is used to denying. Several solitary scenes paint a portrait of her agitation as she doubts whether she is feeling anything at all, whether it may be love, what love is and what that means.
This conflict is why I regard Black Sheep as the most mature and contemporarily relevant of Heyer's historicals. The conflict so nearly mirrors the post-modern intellectual dilemma and conceptualisations of romance - while finishing, of course, very romantically. It's an optimistic and unapologetically pro-romance view, of course, but one which doesn't ignore the fundamental question which the romance genre begs. In addressing the issue, this novel actually reminds me strongly (and felicitously) of many of the smartest, most sophisticated and post-modern romances available in slash fandom. The self-awareness and intelligence of slash romance is, after all, what separates it from the Harlequins.
This isn't to say Black Sheep is without flaw. It's a slim volume compared to other novels in the same edition, and feels a little rushed in the second half, besides being rather transparent in its creation of dramatic irony, as Heyer tends to be. But since it has no thriller plot in particular, and doesn't rely on that irony for very much actual drama, I didn't find it particularly distracting.
The Quiet Gentleman belongs to the constellation of Heyers that includes The Unknown Ajax and even Venetia (which approaches the formula from the heroine's side, mostly): the heir returning to his birthright, surrounded at the country estate by extended family. It's also, like Regency Buck, got a THRILLER PLOT!! pasted on yey. Heyer's skills lie far more in investigations of murder after the fact than in thrillers (see the ponderous mysteries Penhallow and Footsteps in the Dark), but TQG avoids getting tangled in its own traces as Regency Buck does by concentrating more on Heyer's own Regency High Life~ formula. (Warning: mystery plot spoiled within.)
Of course, the repeated attempts on the life of Gervase Frant, the Earl of St Erth, are not particularly scary. The text doesn't go for the creation of fear that you find in a traditional thriller; Gervase always seems to be in control of events, as Heyer's Heroes usually are. This is perhaps a shame, because the import of the plot is a bit less transparent than Heyer's past thrillers have been, although she chooses basically the same character to vilify as in Lady of Quality, which makes it a bit predictable.
(The villain, a cousin in the line of succession in both LoQ and TQG, has the same basic characterisation, the same superficial role of Supporter in the plot, and the same quiet, early introduction. Bernard Taverner and Theo Frant - they even sort of sound like the same type of person, or is that just me? Bernard and Theo are hard-working, quiet, mousy-brown names, aren't they?
But back to the hero! Where Black Sheep's Miles Calverleigh is a black-haired, sloppy rake with no social graces, Gervase Frant is the opposite. Heyer loves her pretty, effeminate, meticulously dressed heroes. Gervase is just such a hunk of burning love, and is furthermore described as blond and slight. His manners are deceptively mild, too, just like the manners of so many Heyer Heroes. He is, in fact, her favourite Type. But don't worry that he's actually un-manly, because he's a bruising rider, a capital whip, and much more skilled with a rapier than his hunting-mad half-brother Martin (a charmingly unmannered, sulky teenie who I'd slash with someone at the drop of a hat, if I could in fact find anyone to match. He's of much the same type as Richmond in The Unknown Ajax).
(Theo's fate is sealed, from my point of view, when a secondary sidekick appears on the scene, an old army friend named Lucius. Who needs *two* supportive friends? And it's always clear that Lucy is blameless, because he stands to gain nothing by Gervase's death.)
On to the heroine! This is where The Quiet Gentleman really shines. The heroine gets far less POV than is usual for a Heyer Heroine, and the primary narrative skims over her a great deal in the beginning. She is short and curvy and mouse-brown. Possessed of spectacles and masterful at Arrangements (particularly for a large ball held mid-book), she starts off apparently as St Erth's asshole step-mom's companion, though it is soon clear that she is in fact a houseguest of gentle birth. Her parents being novelists, her mother a feminist and her father some kind of Marxist or something, Miss Morville's practicality is stated to be a disappointment to them as it apparently is contradictory to any bookishness (which she is lacking). She considers herself beneath St Erth, once her crush is brought up later in the book, on grounds of deficient prettiness (not birth, because, as Elizabeth Bennett says, 'He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal') and fortune.
Miss Morville's practicality is delightful for novelty, when taken as an outstanding quality and brought out for humour value. In the denoument, St Erth characterises it as "adorable", which is quite funny - practicality being mocked as out of place? It really says something about the genre, doesn't it, or about the Heroine's role in general? It's hard to say whether that particular direction of meta was Heyer's intent or not. It might bear further thought.
