Devil's Cub: Georgette Heyer Book Club Part 3

[DilysPrice]

My calendar has reminded me that we are back from half term and it is Devil's Cub day.

Avon is still omnipotent and omniscient (and GH still totes has a crush on him even though he's 60-something). Leonie is still mad as a box of frogs. Rupert is still good value. And Juliana's unfortunate fiancé performs the Hugh Davenent role of sane observer making dry quips at the craziness around him (but doing it much better IMO because he has an actual plot function).

Which leaves us with the romantic leads. Mary is brilliant - one of my all time favourite GH heroines. Dominic has his moments but although GH thought his actions were forgivable, can we ever accept him as a "happy ending" from our 21st century perspective? GH is clearly aware (from the other characters' comments) that she's pushing the "girls love a bastard" angle as close as possible to its limit, and the fact that she never went that far again in her later books I think shows her awareness that she'd crossed the line.

But the plotting - oh how I love the plotting.

Thoughts? Can we accept Dominic as a romantic lead? Did you swoon over him as a teen?

Hello, may I join in? I didn't realise there was a regular GH thread and I adore her books.

Vidal - never did it for me. But I've always liked Mary. I did enjoy Léonie and Rupert being on top form again.

About the ages point - Waldo Hawkridge and Ancilla Trent are much closer in age; she is very intelligent woman with worldly experience and they make altogether a very convincing pair, while that appalling baggage Tiffany Wield is clearly a nightmare in the making for any one. So that's one where the stock situation of older man / younger wife (which was totally normal at the time I believe) gets turned on its head: he falls for the governess.

And yes, the PP who said Freddie Standen is lovely is absolutely right. I have just reread Cotillion and it's adorable.

Freddy is a sweetheart (and also quite young, I think?). I also have a soft spot for his father, who is a bit of a Mr Bennet with a gift for dry quips, but less selfish.

Can't help thinking GH was running out of names by the time she wrote The Nonesuch - Waldo and Ancilla, really??

I know - it's a shame really, they're both great characters but their names are a bit . And Sophy and Charles are an excellent match in terms of age and worldly wiseness.

I quite enjoy playing GH name spotting when out and about in the country. I think she just used an atlas of Great Britain. Particularly when I found that even Chard (Gervase's groom in Quiet Gentleman) was named after a place!

One of the plot repetitions between the historical and detective novels is the set up of older women (sisters and cousin-in-law) in Frederica: one majestic and overbearing but ultimately quite sensible sister, one foolish and penny pinching sister and a more attractive but selfish and extremely cajoling scrounger of an in-law. It comes up almost identically in Behold Here's Poison, though there isn't the compensatingly nice sister that there is in Frederica.

To be fair to GH I don't think she has her heroines going swoony over displays of brute force - they are normally mildly irritated by it, and much more impressed by a man who makes them laugh or sympathises with their feelings. The typical sound of a GH heroine falling for a man is when she says "Yes, that's it exactly!"

But she expects us to swoon over masterful men, which is quite annoying.

I'm midway into Regency Buck (Monday 25th , you have one week and counting) and have spent an enlightening 30 minutes reading through Wikipedia's entries on The Royal Dukes, aka the sons of George III, who feature heavily. If, like me, you were not aware that the Duke of Clarence= William IV then I would highly recommend the wiki entry on his life as background to Regency Buck, and indeed many other of the Regency romances.

(would it make things better if I pleaded in my defence that Horrible Histories goes straight from Georgians to Victorians, so William IV is a bit of a blind spot for me? No, I thought it wouldn't).

Oh I can think of a fair few who get crushed to the manly bosoms in a suffocating embrace and come out of it all giggly and swoony, Dilys! annoys me every time. They even say things like "can't he see that she wants to be mastered?" Actually occurs in Devil's Cub - Juliana is in need of such mastery, by Frederick Comyn, apparently.

Judith gets awfully pissed off with Worth when he calls her Clorinda and tries it on though, to be fair...

I think nearly all the final embraces lead to a degree of swooniness, but that's not really surprising is it? And Judith is very spirited most of the time.

MooncupGoddess - I agree about Lord Legerwood, can't help wishing there was a bit more of him.

OK, a bit of a Google gives Clorinda as the name of Robin Hood's girlfriend in the earliest sources, which sounds right for the "rural setting" that Worth finds her in. It's also the name of a character in a poem by Torquato Tasso (and derivative works) but that's less plausible.
Specifically there's a painting by Thomas Guest called Clorinda which was hung in the RA in 1811, the year of RB. Although I can't find a picture of it on Google (but am on phone so restricted) it seems plausible that it shows a maiden in rustic setting displaying her ankle and Worth was struck by the resemblance. Backing this up is the fact that Guest painted the classic portrait of Thomas Belcher - well known Heyer bit-part player, so GH would be aware of his work.

Yes, I think Clorinda is a milkmaid-type name and used by Worth in a patronising way.

Agree that all the Frederick/Juliana 'she wants to be mastered' stuff is v. annoying, but this goes along with the Vidal/Mary 'he's just a bad boy really' nonsense, and GH grows out of it soon afterwards.

It is true, Thumbwitch, that quite a few heroines get crushed to the hero's bosom and go a bit afterwards... but they are clearly in love already by that point and, honestly, wouldn't you go a bit unnecessary following a clinch with Mr Beaumaris or Miles Calverleigh?

But, much as I love the books, I do deprecate the need to display even the most intelligent and independent heroines as going weak at the knees at displays of brute strength by their beau, and the concept that they (the women) can manage their brutishness - sends a terrible message to women who suffer abuse in their relationships.

I'm not sure they go weak at the knees at displays of brute strength (I can't think of any examples of the heroes doing anything particularly manly off the top of my head, they're mostly more cerebral than than macho men, aren't they?) they do swoon a bit when they're kissed but then, who wouldn't?!

WRT the messages about abuse, I can't decide where I stand on looking at books that were written in a different era and applying 21st century values to it. Can we really judge a book that was set 200 years ago and written 70/80 years ago by our ideas on what is right?

GH's heroines were very forward thinking and so were a lot of her heroes, in regards to behaviour they accepted in their women, considering it was a time when men were there to be obeyed. Many of the relationships we see in the novels are far more equal than I think they would have been at the time. Domestic abuse wasn't seen in the same light in the 1930s and certainly wasn't in the 1810s so how can we criticise GH for the message she sends?

X-posts with Leonie. I was struggling to articulate what I was thinking.

Despite doing English at A level and degree level I have never looked at novels from a feminist viewpoint which is why I think it doesn't sit well with me but I'm willing to be educated as to why it's done.

You're right Leonie, both the Worth and Damerel examples are very much aristocratic male privilege in action. Worth is basically a male chauvinist pig throughout, always manipulating Judith in a semi-paternalistic fashion (and it's an early book so one should make allowances).

With Damerel, I can see it works well as a narrative device, and it neatly introduces the poetry theme. And he has been seen throughout the neighbourhood as a dangerous libertine, and to an extent is deliberately playing up to his reputation. But I can see why it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Well that's the issue LadyD - I can't suddenly go all worthy on the books and refuse to read them because I think they're great; but I suppose they're like fairy stories in the respect that the heroine wins the day, gets her prince and they all live happily everafter - with the difference being that the hero may have been a dodgy libertine before being "rescued". And that's the sticky bit - but what can you do? As I said, I'm not going to stop reading them and it is the reader's responsibility to realise that it is only fiction and not a mirror of true life but sometimes it makes me a touch uncomfortable.

I think it's A Convenient Marriage where Rule is either thinking about or recommended to beat Horry for her waywardness; but you're right, it's a historical novel and those sorts of things did happen so documenting them is of historical value.

And I do love when the ladies put the men neatly in their places when they're being overly-patronising, such as "you'll allow me to know your mind better than you do, my dear" - oh do fuck off! But said so nicely! The Grand Sophy is one of my favourites for this reason (among others).

Will stop going on about it now! :) (TBH, I never used to think about it at all except with the occasional "oh FGS" when they went all wibbly, but reading MN has had a bad effect on me! )

She certainly was an amazing researcher and writer. I still love that they actually use her rendition of the Battle of Waterloo in An Infamous Army, as one of the best descriptions of said battle, at Sandhurst (or so I was told by an army officer who went there, anyway!)

I also love her ability to change language to suit the period - and even more so, to suit the prissiness or otherwise of her characters! The pomposity of both male and female characters is so obvious in some, you can just hear their self-importance - she was such a clever writer (and that's why I never get bored of her books).

Except Penhallow - but I've read that she wrote that in a snit with the publishing company because she wanted out of the contract and they wouldn't allow her to break it - so she wrote an awful book (which it is, not a single sympathetic character in it and I read it twice just to make sure I hated it!)

How nice to hear that about Sandhurst using An Infamous Army - Jane Aiken Hodge says something like that in her biography but I didn't realise it was still true.

What you say about Penhallow is interesting too; it is such a horrid book (and homophobic, as I recall). It must be the best part of 20 years since I read it (once was enough!) but I still feel a bit soiled when I think of it.

Would love to join in this thread, but can't quite work out which is the current book and which is being read next. Looks like Regency Buck has just been discussed - what's next?

Oh goody - what time? I will be glued. Need a distraction today

Shall I start us off on Regency Buck? Or would the Duchess of Avon like the honour?

Ok - will do after bedtime stories.

There you go but I'm afraid I was unable to resist talking about Peregrine's scandalous behaviour in squeezing his cock .