Justification of guilty pleasures
Jan. 25th, 2006 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_schaeferI have a habit of reading certain comfort books in the depths of winter. Some of them are perfectly respectable because of their age or established literary reputations, while others require a certain amount of defensiveness for a literary snob to read without embarrassment (the question of literary snobbery can be reserved for another day). I was pleased some years back to read A. S. Byatt's essay on Georgette Heyer, but I've remained defensive about reading Heyer myself, because one cannot carry around the essay on the off-chance that one would want to use it as a counter-argument at some point.
Heyer wrote quite a lot of bad fiction, and the worst that she wrote, her appalling political-historical fiction, was the stuff that made her proudest, while according to her widower, she hated writing the frivolous romance novels that supported her, made her reputation, and make her worth reading.
Much of the time, when I defend Heyer's writing, I talk about her prodigious research of every detail of the Regency period. She knew what was fashionable, and in which year. She was more interested in what happened politically, but she rarely brought her political knowledge to bear in her romance novels. Politics would not interest her readers. When it does show up, it shows up around the edges, much like the details of sarsenet and muslin, giving the stories that stamp of authenticity.
When I say that's what makes her worthwhile, I am utterly in the wrong. There are plenty of writers with voluminous research, and many of them are not at all shy about displaying those volumes. I have in my basement a complete set of the novels of Louisa Muhlbach, purchased by some Schaefer in search of respectable leather-bound books to decorate a wall more than a hundred years ago, and read by no one until I cut their pages in the 1960s, when I would read anything. Muhlbach could tell you all about the clothes and the poetry of Henry VIII or Napoleon (of any number), but her books deserve the wall decoration fate. She never wrote a sentence that anyone could remember by the next paragraph.
What makes Heyer worth reading is this: "Lady Theresa prophesied disaster for all concerned, and hoped that when Serena was dying an old maid she would remember these words, and be sorry. Meanwhile she remained her affectionate aunt." (Bath Tangle, 1955)
Heyer wrote quite a lot of bad fiction, and the worst that she wrote, her appalling political-historical fiction, was the stuff that made her proudest, while according to her widower, she hated writing the frivolous romance novels that supported her, made her reputation, and make her worth reading.
Much of the time, when I defend Heyer's writing, I talk about her prodigious research of every detail of the Regency period. She knew what was fashionable, and in which year. She was more interested in what happened politically, but she rarely brought her political knowledge to bear in her romance novels. Politics would not interest her readers. When it does show up, it shows up around the edges, much like the details of sarsenet and muslin, giving the stories that stamp of authenticity.
When I say that's what makes her worthwhile, I am utterly in the wrong. There are plenty of writers with voluminous research, and many of them are not at all shy about displaying those volumes. I have in my basement a complete set of the novels of Louisa Muhlbach, purchased by some Schaefer in search of respectable leather-bound books to decorate a wall more than a hundred years ago, and read by no one until I cut their pages in the 1960s, when I would read anything. Muhlbach could tell you all about the clothes and the poetry of Henry VIII or Napoleon (of any number), but her books deserve the wall decoration fate. She never wrote a sentence that anyone could remember by the next paragraph.
What makes Heyer worth reading is this: "Lady Theresa prophesied disaster for all concerned, and hoped that when Serena was dying an old maid she would remember these words, and be sorry. Meanwhile she remained her affectionate aunt." (Bath Tangle, 1955)
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 03:33 pm (UTC)I tend to read "children's" books, or books that were, or would have been, serialized in the Saturday Evening Post. I'm currently hung up in several "worthy" books, and reading Paddington Bear stories for comfort.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 05:06 pm (UTC)Part of what makes Heyer worthwhile is her deftness with the sort of stuff that Shakespeare was attempting in his comedies. Set up a bunch of characters and rules they must abide by for compelling social reasons, drop in a McGuffin to set things in motion, and let the whole bright, sparkling, well-oiled orrery of events spin and twirl through its paces.
Each arabesque is compelled, like faerie clockwork, by the delicate machinery that is already in place, but the whole is sufficiently complex and distractingly shiny that the moves are still surprising when they come. Even when they're anticipated by long habit of re-reading, they're lovely to watch because of the ingenious precision of their fit and timing. Everything is just so, and with a romping playfulness that is that much more charming because it is set against ineluctable necessity.
When Heyer wrote romances she was primarily interested in what made a good story, and presumably in trying to inject some fun in what she considered a tedious project. When she wrote histories her remarkable sense of story had to take a back seat to actual events, and she felt no need to add fun to what she regarded as fun in itself -- history. The results are regrettable.
So you don't have to justify re-reading Heyer to me. But I might look to borrow copies of anything you have that I haven't already read...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 10:21 pm (UTC)Muhlbach
Date: 2006-07-22 01:35 pm (UTC)Thank you.
P.S. I read Heyer voluminously as a teenager (she taught me much of my vocabulary) and I still read her today for relaxation.
Re: Muhlbach
Date: 2006-07-22 05:07 pm (UTC)Re: Muhlbach
Date: 2006-07-25 02:17 pm (UTC)