Feb 2012: VF Hangout #2 Silent in the Grave: What would you like to hear us dicuss?

[Kiala]

Tomorrow night (Mon 2/27 8pm PST) is our second Vaginal Fantasy Hangout! This month's pick is Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn. If you have any suggestions about what you'd like us to discuss please post them in this thread. For example: I would like to talk about Julia's haircut. For reals. Good idea or terrible idea? THIS IS IMPORTANT. Anyway, post your discussion topics here!

[Mandy]

These are just my thoughts...

I would like to hear discussion on the clothes and fashion of the day. Including the fashion of body shape, specifically for more curvaceous women.

*spoiler*
One of the more endearing scenes in the book for me was Portia's insistence on Julia's weight gain. Highlighting the necessity for Julia to look more womanly. (adding a stone in this day and age for wealthy socialites would end in tabloid covers honking inanely about how someone had "let themselves go" or appeals to the family for "someone looking after them")
*end spoiler*

I was also interested in thoughts on the portrayal of homosexuality (in its many forms) and to some extent bi-sexuality in this novel. Also about the realism of how it was portrayed in the time the novel was set.

Another potential topic was the many varied types love expressed within the novel. People's ability to change one type of love for another is that realistic?

Finally, what would you the group like to have seen different in this book? (besides Brisbane as a werewolf)

[Neko]

Did you pick this book because you thought it was going to spike peoples interest in reading similar types of books or was it because you felt this book was a good introduction into viginal fantasy for people?

[Paul]

1. Do you think the historical/linguistic inaccuracies in the novel (for example: gotten instead of got, the use of Oedipal half a century before Freud used the term, check instead of cheque, etc.) detracted from the novel's feeling of authenticity, or are they an acceptable side effect of pseudo-English novels written by American authors? To be fair, British writers have a similar problem with period drama, too: see Downton Abbey. So no offence intended to Deanna. She's awesome -- with a capital awwww.

2. What exactly do you think the appeal of Vaginal Fantasy is? Why do you read it? What does it offer that other literature does not?

[Jamie]

Brisbane: Mysteriously brooding and seductively intense or a self-indulgent prig with a stick up his ass? Discuss.

[Ian]

I'm unfamiliar with Victorian romance novels. Is this book representative of the genre? Is there typically a mystery? Or a paranormal aspect? What's the general appeal?

[Eddie]

I'd like to discuss ideas of literature in relation to social customs and social values. For example, shifting gender roles of the past two centuries and how authors should approach them. Basically - do books have a responsibility to the greater culture in respect to social mores.

Are the men in Julia's life abusive, or is that how we see it through the lens of our own culture?

The follow up to that is: If they are abusive then what role does literature of this type take in indoctrinating readers to accept/reject such behavior?

[Jes]

Loved both of your discussions so far! Got the message too late to get the book, but it is on my wish list. Made me want to read it even more!