Looking back at The Governess, part 2
Last time we looked at the inspiration for The Governess. Today I'm going to examine characters and the book's framing device.
It's generally agreed that the maximum number of main characters a reader can focus upon is six or seven. Rightly or wrongly, I disagree; I prefer to have two major characters surrounded by their family, friends, enemies etc. The Governess is no exception.
CS Lewis once said that while his Screwtape Letters was the easiest book he'd ever written, it wasn't a pleasant experience because writing as a devil gave him moral cramp. I had a similar experience: although writing The Governess took me around 8 months (something of a record for me), it wasn't nice being stuck inside Benny's psyche for long stretches of time.
Benny is a horror. There, I've said it. I'm mystified by the affection with which some readers (my girlfriend included), regard her; I find it easier to understand those who are so appalled by her behaviour that they stop reading. A child-woman who has never emotionally matured, she prefers her relationships to be based on domination. Hypocritical, selfish, an intellectual snob, no sense of humour to speak of- I find very little to like about her. Above all, she's a coward. When Juliet offers her a healthy, loving relationship between equals, she flees. Although we could attribute her behaviour to an abusive mother and her youthful entanglement with Miss Hardcastle, I can't help but feel that's overly generous. On some level she's recreating those relationships with herself as top dog.
Secondly, Amy, the unlucky object of her obsession. It's no exaggeration to say, bar the first few chapters, detailing Benny's youth, Amy is the pivot of the entire book - everything happens because of her. Some people dismiss her as a bimbo; I actually have a lot of time for Amy. She's outspoken and gutsy- much more than Benny. Yes, she can be shallow, manipulative and cruel, but she's a teenager at a time where women were regarded as pretty, useless ornaments. She didn't have Benny's incentives to go out and get an education.
Which brings us to something which seems to be a deal breaker for some readers, particularly Americans: Amy's tender age. While I agree that being attracted to a teenager when you're in loco parentis is gross, she is of age when she and Benny become lovers, whether in her time or under current UK law, so it isn't 'child porn' as some readers have said.
Our heroines (if you can call them that) are surrounded by a close knit group of family, friends and servants. There's Amy's parents, a gender swapped version of Mr and Mrs Bennet- Sir Robert is stupid but loving while Lady Emma is intelligent and self absorbed; Mrs Macmillan, the housekeeper whose motives are never quite clear (is she the tyrannical hag Benny sees or a kindly old lady protecting Amy's interests?); Candida, Amy's wonderful, tarty, ruthless friend who more or less murdered her husband; sweet, gentle Juliet, who sincerely loves Benny with all her heart ... That's to say nothing of the three luckless suitors who stray into Amy's orbit: ninnyish Roxburgh, who turns out to be ever so slightly unstable; Hamer, the clever but vulnerable stable lad who's good with animals but hopeless with people- and Amy's great love Gillespie, an upright, honest young man who wants to rescue her from her crazy situation.
One of my favourite characters to write for- and this also brings us onto our second topic, the story's framing device- was Agnew, Benny's thoroughly repellent admirer. He was a deliberate send up of all those "decent young professional stumbles into a pit of devils" characters you get in Victorian novels, such as Jonathan Harker or the narrator of The Woman in Black. His unbelievable ugliness is underscored by a vain, amoral, obnoxious personality; it seemed inevitable that he would crush on Benny. Indeed, between the two of them, it's hard to decide who's worse!
Part of the story's set up is that there are two versions of The Governess: the first being a turgid play by 'AA Trism' (clearly Agnew using a nom de plume), the second being the true version, Benny's version, starting with a Prologue from her perspective and an Epilogue in third person. The book is peppered with quotes from 'The Governess' play, which are the kind of doggerel you'd expect a little nerd like Agnew to write. It finishes with an Afterword: an Author's Notes on 'The Governess.'
Time to clarify, since there seems to be some confusion about this: there was never a scandalous play called The Governess by AA Trism (who, if he had existed, I would have done an enormous disservice by portraying him as a psychopathic rapist). It is my own invention; I was employing a similar device to one of my favourite books of all time, The Princess Bride, which purports to be the 'good bits' version of a much longer, duller book.
I used the framing device as an affectionate nod to all those Victorian potboilers that were almost invariably converted into plays: e.g The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret, East Lynne. In those days, turning your novel into a play was like having it adapted by the BBC now; the whole country would be talking about it, it'd inspire songs and even fashions (the trilby hat was inspired by the George du Maurier novel of the same name). Agnew was just the sort of person who would write a transparent play about his 'ex' (he never gets it through his thick head that Benny doesn't like him). I thoroughly enjoyed writing the Author's notes in a cod academic style; I'm sorry if this confused or misled any readers.
It's generally agreed that the maximum number of main characters a reader can focus upon is six or seven. Rightly or wrongly, I disagree; I prefer to have two major characters surrounded by their family, friends, enemies etc. The Governess is no exception.
CS Lewis once said that while his Screwtape Letters was the easiest book he'd ever written, it wasn't a pleasant experience because writing as a devil gave him moral cramp. I had a similar experience: although writing The Governess took me around 8 months (something of a record for me), it wasn't nice being stuck inside Benny's psyche for long stretches of time.
Benny is a horror. There, I've said it. I'm mystified by the affection with which some readers (my girlfriend included), regard her; I find it easier to understand those who are so appalled by her behaviour that they stop reading. A child-woman who has never emotionally matured, she prefers her relationships to be based on domination. Hypocritical, selfish, an intellectual snob, no sense of humour to speak of- I find very little to like about her. Above all, she's a coward. When Juliet offers her a healthy, loving relationship between equals, she flees. Although we could attribute her behaviour to an abusive mother and her youthful entanglement with Miss Hardcastle, I can't help but feel that's overly generous. On some level she's recreating those relationships with herself as top dog.
Secondly, Amy, the unlucky object of her obsession. It's no exaggeration to say, bar the first few chapters, detailing Benny's youth, Amy is the pivot of the entire book - everything happens because of her. Some people dismiss her as a bimbo; I actually have a lot of time for Amy. She's outspoken and gutsy- much more than Benny. Yes, she can be shallow, manipulative and cruel, but she's a teenager at a time where women were regarded as pretty, useless ornaments. She didn't have Benny's incentives to go out and get an education.
Which brings us to something which seems to be a deal breaker for some readers, particularly Americans: Amy's tender age. While I agree that being attracted to a teenager when you're in loco parentis is gross, she is of age when she and Benny become lovers, whether in her time or under current UK law, so it isn't 'child porn' as some readers have said.
Our heroines (if you can call them that) are surrounded by a close knit group of family, friends and servants. There's Amy's parents, a gender swapped version of Mr and Mrs Bennet- Sir Robert is stupid but loving while Lady Emma is intelligent and self absorbed; Mrs Macmillan, the housekeeper whose motives are never quite clear (is she the tyrannical hag Benny sees or a kindly old lady protecting Amy's interests?); Candida, Amy's wonderful, tarty, ruthless friend who more or less murdered her husband; sweet, gentle Juliet, who sincerely loves Benny with all her heart ... That's to say nothing of the three luckless suitors who stray into Amy's orbit: ninnyish Roxburgh, who turns out to be ever so slightly unstable; Hamer, the clever but vulnerable stable lad who's good with animals but hopeless with people- and Amy's great love Gillespie, an upright, honest young man who wants to rescue her from her crazy situation.
One of my favourite characters to write for- and this also brings us onto our second topic, the story's framing device- was Agnew, Benny's thoroughly repellent admirer. He was a deliberate send up of all those "decent young professional stumbles into a pit of devils" characters you get in Victorian novels, such as Jonathan Harker or the narrator of The Woman in Black. His unbelievable ugliness is underscored by a vain, amoral, obnoxious personality; it seemed inevitable that he would crush on Benny. Indeed, between the two of them, it's hard to decide who's worse!
Part of the story's set up is that there are two versions of The Governess: the first being a turgid play by 'AA Trism' (clearly Agnew using a nom de plume), the second being the true version, Benny's version, starting with a Prologue from her perspective and an Epilogue in third person. The book is peppered with quotes from 'The Governess' play, which are the kind of doggerel you'd expect a little nerd like Agnew to write. It finishes with an Afterword: an Author's Notes on 'The Governess.'
Time to clarify, since there seems to be some confusion about this: there was never a scandalous play called The Governess by AA Trism (who, if he had existed, I would have done an enormous disservice by portraying him as a psychopathic rapist). It is my own invention; I was employing a similar device to one of my favourite books of all time, The Princess Bride, which purports to be the 'good bits' version of a much longer, duller book.
I used the framing device as an affectionate nod to all those Victorian potboilers that were almost invariably converted into plays: e.g The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret, East Lynne. In those days, turning your novel into a play was like having it adapted by the BBC now; the whole country would be talking about it, it'd inspire songs and even fashions (the trilby hat was inspired by the George du Maurier novel of the same name). Agnew was just the sort of person who would write a transparent play about his 'ex' (he never gets it through his thick head that Benny doesn't like him). I thoroughly enjoyed writing the Author's notes in a cod academic style; I'm sorry if this confused or misled any readers.
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