Things we have problems with in GH Novels

[Janhavi]

yes, I am broadly with Andrea on this. I am much more irritated by modern attitudes in HF than about historical stuff that we consider deplorable today. Of course, I know many people like books that are written/read with a modern perspective.

[Jenny]

Teresa - it was a GH novel where the hero thrashed his tiger: in fact, it was Sherry!

[HJ]

Jenny wrote: "Teresa - it was a GH novel where the hero thrashed his tiger: in fact, it was Sherry!"

Well spotted! To be fair, it was for stealing. The tiger could have been transported for stealing, so Sherry was doing him a favour in trying to beat it out of him (an accepted method in those days), not handing him over to the authorities, and keeping him in his employment - almost unheard of leniency!!

[Karlyne]

I think we ought to keep in mind, too, that all those things that we "know" today, whether facts or behavior or morals, are liable to be thought of in the future as just as silly as the old wives tales we laugh at now.

I think that's why I don't like modern perspectives in my historical fiction!

[Ellen]

Karlyne wrote: "I think we ought to keep in mind, too, that all those things that we "know" today, whether facts or behavior or morals, are liable to be thought of in the future as just as silly as the old wives..."
You are so right. What is the point if the characters act like they are in modern times and just playing dress up.

[HJ]

Karlyne wrote: "I think we ought to keep in mind, too, that all those things that we "know" today, whether facts or behavior or morals, are liable to be thought of in the future as just as silly as the old wives..."

Absolutely.

[HJ]

Ellen wrote: "You are so right. What is the point if the characters act like they are in modern times and just playing dress up. ..."

I agree. It's perfectly possible to portray your Regency heroes and heroines as having a kind nature (think of Arabella rescuing puppies and sweep's boys, and Mr Beaumaris taking care of them for her) without endowing them with anachronistic notions.

[Karlyne]

Yes, Arabella doesn't have to campaign for the SPCA in order to be kind to puppies!

[Janhavi]

Haha! I agree completely with what Karlyne and Hj said.

[Kate]

(Very late to this discussion, but:) I prefer my heroines and heroes to act anachronistically.

For one thing, I find the idea that we can be sure how people of the past thought or felt is silly, for another I just don't think people's psyches have changed that much over time. So often I when I find myself annoyed at an anachronism, if I think further it is less about it being an anachronism than it being something that throws me out of the story. I passionately adore history, and I know a lot of historical facts, but I have never found anything to justify the thought that all people thought or behaved in one certain way in the past any more than they do now, and when my brain cries "anachronism" about thoughts or feelings I have to really consider why I think it so. One need only read Christine dePisan to rethink one's attitudes about historical feminism, or take time to think about how Victorian attitudes about sexuality continue to color our perceptions of pre-Victorian sexuality, to realize how difficult it is to make generalizations about how a historical person might have thought or felt.

My other reason for preferring anachronism in heroes and heroines is that my reading enlightens me about my own thoughts - but also I like it to be fun, and sexists and mysogynists are no fun to me!

So, with no fairness in my heart or concession to the times in which an author wrote, I expect reasonable, thoughtful, rational heroines and heroes who like strong women!

[Janhavi]

Yes, many people feel that way- you might like Courtney Milan's books.

[Leslie]

Kate wrote: "(Very late to this discussion, but:) I prefer my heroines and heroes to act anachronistically.

For one thing, I find the idea that we can be sure how people of the past thought or felt is silly,..."

Then why read historical fiction at all? Why not just read contemporary novels?

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Kat, a lot if people feel as you do with your preference for anachronistic behavior. These days it seems that HR authors are writing for this audience with these preferences. I don't like glaring anachronistic behavior very much. It throws me out of the story. However, anachronistic behavior seems to be where the $$ is and writers do it to make a living. Writers don't write HR with me in mind.

[Karlyne]

I do like deliberate anachronisms. T.H. White springs to mind in his Arthurian books, for instance. But I don't like modern, politically correct or watered down thoughts put into the mouths of historical characters in order for them to be palatable to us, as though we can't enjoy the variety of humanity without having it sanitized for us.

Society certainly changes, but individuals really don't. There have been strong, intelligent, humorous women throughout the ages in all eras. It does the women of the past a great disservice to say that they were not.

I think that what I'm trying to say is that I don't think that portraying women of intelligence and strength in a historical setting is an anachronism any more than portraying a pea-goose is!

[Kate]

I suppose what I really mean to say is that, while I am bothered by anachronisms like technologies or structures or language, factual inaccuracies, I don't think it's possible to judge notions or emotions as anachronistic based on our knowledge of the zeitgeist of the era we're reading. The way individuals behave and think and feel is so widely varying that I don't mind feminist heroines of the 1500s or characters whose political thought is what I would think of as ahead of its time.

To give an example: if a writer chooses to have a female character in the late 1800s in the US not change her name to her husband's upon marriage, that would be unusual of the character but not impossible (depending on the region and perhaps requiring some discussion of the laws of the time in an artful way.) Such a character might also have some other opinions and undertake feministic actions that were unusual for the time but not impossible. And that is not really an anachronism, but others might feel it so, and so I might tell those readers I liked the anachronism.

I had not realized this would be such a contentious topic. I should not have said I liked anachronism, since what I was disagreeing with were posters citing notions and emotions (slightly in love with my phrasing) which I think are difficult to truly identify as anachronistic, such a designation perhaps saying more about our own prejudices than the writer's.

And also - I think good writing makes up for a multitude of sins here and poor writing serves them up in a glaringly obvious break-reader-engagement manner and that is also why we seem to be in such disagreement.

So - to come back to the things that bother me in GH novels, it is the fact that, despite GH's immense historical research, her own opinions and preferences do slip in, which is not a big deal except for that it colors my perception of the historical period and then sometimes I find myself having to look up and parse what Heyer's facts were and what her assumptions were and what I really think about the era in question, especially when I'm reading another Regency.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Kate has given me something to think about with regard to anachronistic behavior in HR. That's why it's a good thing to be open to other ideas and to learn what they are.

[Jenny]

I don't mind 'anachronistic' views and behaviour, because obviously people are individuals; but what jars is if the other characters don't notice! Look at Sophy, for example - calls her father by his first name and doesn't hesitate to hold a loan shark up at gunpoint, but nobody else in the book thinks that's a normal thing to do; it's just the way Sophy is. If GH ladies made a habit of pulling guns out in any emergency and calling men inappropriately by their first names, then that would be an annoying anachronism.

An example of what really jars me, though, stepping outside GH for a moment, is in the televised Sharpe series (set, for those who don't know it, in the Peninsular War), after Sharpe and Jane have eloped but before they're married: he's seen climbing into her bedroom surreptitiously 'for the sake of her reputation' - and that jars, because of course, having eloped with him and been living 'under his protection', her reputation was ruined already and everybody would have been assuming they were sleeping together. It just wrecks the plausibility of the story.

[Karlyne]

Kate wrote: "I suppose what I really mean to say is that, while I am bothered by anachronisms like technologies or structures or language, factual inaccuracies, I don't think it's possible to judge notions or e..."

Ok, I admit it! I'm totally confused! What anachronisms are we talking about?!? I think we might be agreeing about human character not changing much over the centuries, and so therefore any personality that we see these days can certainly be transported back to, say, 1818? Is that right, or am I lost again?

[Jenny]

I don't think character as such changes over the centuries, but social norms and assumptions do. We can't say 'no woman of the early C19th would ever do that' but we can say 'no nicely brought up young lady of the early C19th would ever get away with that', so that if she does get away with it, the author needs to show how.

Judith Taverner can get away with taking snuff as a bit of a personal distinction, but it would take a heck of a lot of wangling to let her smoke - even Barbara Childe doesn't do that, even if she does paint her toenails and take laudanum. They both enjoy being a bit unusual, and if their novels had been set 100 years later they no doubt would have been smokers.

It's not so much the personalities that risk being anachronistic, but the way those personalities are expressed.

[Karlyne]

So, are we saying that Heyer is being anachronistic in her heroines' personalities? And if so, who's a good example of that? And why? I must confess to still being confused!

[Jenny]

No, I'm not sure how we got onto the subject! Weren't we talking about historical novels in general?

[Karlyne]

Jenny wrote: "No, I'm not sure how we got onto the subject! Weren't we talking about historical novels in general?"

Don't ask me! I'm obviously dazed and confused! hahahaha....

But I do think that's why I love Heyer so much; I don't feel that she is anachronistic in her characters. Of course, now that I think about it (haha again), maybe that's at least partially because she was living in an era which was closer not only in years to her historical periods, but also in thought. Life, thought, morals, you name it, they have all changed in the last 50 years much faster than in other eras.

[Janhavi]

Yes, and she herself was conservative too. Even in the 60s and 70s she wrote as per a much earlier era.

[Jenny]

I think we also have to admit that for most of us, GH novels (with a bit of help from Jane Austen) are the glass through which we view the period! When another novelist 'gets it wrong' it's because we're judging them by what we 'know' of the period as described by GH.

[Karlyne]

Jenny wrote: "I think we also have to admit that for most of us, GH novels (with a bit of help from Jane Austen) are the glass through which we view the period! When another novelist 'gets it wrong' it's because..."

You may have hit the nail on my head there, Jenny! I do indeed tend to see all things through their eyes... (Well, and a few others)

[Anne]

Jenny wrote: "I think we also have to admit that for most of us, GH novels (with a bit of help from Jane Austen) are the glass through which we view the period! When another novelist 'gets it wrong' it's because..."

Oh! I had never thought of it that way, but yes, I believe you are right! I do use Heyer and Austen as the glass through which I see the period!

[Jenny]

I think Heyer more than Austen, partly because she wrote far more books, but also because she makes explicit things that Austen took for granted.
For example, no Jane Austen lady ever visits a single gentleman at his home, but we'd never notice that, because I don't suppose it ever occurred to the author that one would. However, GH heroines find the prohibition irksome and occasionally flout it (eg Hero to Sherry's friends in Friday's Child, Horatia to Rule in The Convenient Marriage), causing comment that makes the rule clear to us.

[HJ]

Jenny wrote: "I think Heyer more than Austen, partly because she wrote far more books, but also because she makes explicit things that Austen took for granted.
For example, no Jane Austen lady ever visits a sin..."

Yes, that's the difference between some one writing a contemporary (as Jane Austen was) where everyone reading the book would know the rules then pertaining to society, and an historical (Heyer) where the readers are living under different rules and so they need to be spelt out. Heyer also tells us more about clothes and carriages and the sights of London etc. etc. for the same reasons.

[Karlyne]

I think that's why certain of Austen's characters have "thoughts" that have stuck with me over the years. Anne (Persuasion) has reservations about Mr. Elliott, for instance, because he has travelled on Sundays. That's a "huh?" for us modern readers and gives us a different view into their time frame.

Oh, and Hj, my copy of Brat Farrar is on the way. It's supposed to be delivered between the 10th and the 25th; how's that for a time frame?!?

[HJ]

Karlyne wrote: "... my copy of Brat Farrar is on the way. It's supposed to be delivered between the 10th and the 25th; how's that for a time frame?!? ..."

Goodness! I do hope you enjoy it after all that.

[Jacquie]

Andrea (Catsos Person) wrote: "Yes, Barbara, a lot of romance readers of present times do not tolerate threats of rape etc.
in historical romances. Authors of HR written in these times write for readers similar to you in mind. ..."
I have also been reading a lot of modern Regency novels and while there is little threat of rape there is all too much (for my taste)seduction of virgins with details, even if the couple does get married. I think that one of the things I like about GH's novels is that there is more restraint,even if there actually wasn't always in those days. It seems more romantic somehow.

[Barbara]

Yes, I like the restraint too. I've never been a fan of loads of sexual detail in any book really . And when it's near rape or 'seduction, absolutely no thanks!

[D.D. Chant]

Barbara wrote: "Yes, I like the restraint too. I've never been a fan of loads of sexual detail in any book really . And when it's near rape or 'seduction, absolutely no thanks!"

Regency Romance books with the seduction theme drive me nutty!!! The way an innocent young lady suddenly turns in to a trollop.

Seriously, think about it:

This girl doesn't know ANYTHING about what goes on behind closed doors (as it were), then some random cad comes along and starts seducing her: imagine what her reaction would be!

She's never been kissed, probably never even held hands: she'd be absolutely HORRIFIED!!!

Plus, the girl would be considered ruined, life (as she knew it) was over for her.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

@D.D.

And they never seem to become preggers either after the seduction!

[D.D. Chant]

Andrea (Catsos Person) wrote: "@D.D.

And they never seem to become preggers either after the seduction!"

How very convenient, right???

[Eleanor]

Donna wrote: "This is not an ideological problem, but why all the exclamation marks in her books? I was rereading Frederica the other day for about the tenth time since it is one of my favorites, and I was star..."


This. It's really the only serious criticism I have of her writing. I want to go through and purge at least half of them. They turned me off when I was poisonously young and serious. Now, I don't care so much, and I've learned to just ignore them. Otherwise, I can't read whole pages of dialogue! Because it's all just too much! Even if the rest of her writing is slap up to the echo! (ok, I've made my point). Heh.

[Barbara]

Yes, I feel we must not fly up into the boughs about it...

[Jenny]

You know, it's something I've never, ever noticed - and I thought I was fussy.

[HJ]

Jenny wrote: "You know, it's something I've never, ever noticed - and I thought I was fussy."

Same here!

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

I read in GHs biography that she was very particular about punctuation and was also adamant that the editors and print staff not tamper with her punctuation.

[Karlyne]

I've never noticed them, either! I read a Barbara Carland or two when young, and, oh, boy, did I notice those! But maybe Heyer's come from using them instead of italics, which I often do because I can't find the italics button! (I'm trying to think of a Regency exclamation, but only "Shazam!" comes to mind...)

[Jacquie]

I'm more likely to notice misspelled words than punctuation unless it somehow makes a sentence hard to understand. That is definitely an editing problem though, not just a failing on the part of the writer.

[Karlyne]

Jacquie wrote: "I'm more likely to notice misspelled words than punctuation unless it somehow makes a sentence hard to understand. That is definitely an editing problem though, not just a failing on the part of ..."

The typos that are so prevalent in so many books always surprise me; doesn't their wrongness glare at the proof-readers and jump up and down on the page?

[D.D. Chant]

I read somewhere that punctuation isn't set in stone and that every paper and magazine has its own style... Not sure how true that is.

It's also ever changing: when I went to school 'me and Jane ordered coffee' was wrong and should be 'Jane and I ordered coffee'. That isn't the case anymore. Now days you can start sentences with 'and' and 'but', which we were always told was wrong at school.

And, is it just me, or are sentences getting shorter? It's as though everyone is scared of using commas! :-P

[Karlyne]

I don't know, D.D. "Me and Jane ordered coffee" is still wrong-unless, of course, you're Tarzan. If you take Jane out of the sentence you have, "Me ordered coffee." What I remember is that you're supposed to put the other person first out of politeness, and that is probably out-dated. If you're feeling impolite, I'm sure "I and Jane ordered ooffee" would be fine, especially followed by "and I made her pay for her own, too!"

[Barbara]

Karlyne wrote: "I don't know, D.D. "Me and Jane ordered coffee" is still wrong-unless, of course, you're Tarzan. If you take Jane out of the sentence you have, "Me ordered coffee." What I remember is that you're ..."

Unless of course you're Tarzan.... LOL
( LOL being a very short and ungrammatical sentence I know)

[Louise Sparrow]

"Me and Jane ordered coffee." is grammatically incorrect, however, I would write that in speech if I decided that was how my character spoke.

I think that's why we see so much more of these phrases now, it is how people speak... I don't hear anyone say "Jane and I"... of course I live somewhere where 'Well nice' and the letter 'Haitch' are prevalent so if start a sentence with 'And', no one would notice. *sigh*

[Karlyne]

Louise wrote: ""Me and Jane ordered coffee." is grammatically incorrect, however, I would write that in speech if I decided that was how my character spoke.

I think that's why we see so much more of these phrase..."

Strangely enough, I think most folks around here do say "Jane and I" as a subject, but they also say, "Him and I went to the store to pick up a case of beer for them guys and I". Graaaaating sound? Just my teeth gnashing.

[Karlyne]

And (haha), has anyone seen the Weird Al Yankovic grammar video?

[Louise Sparrow]

LOL I have now ;) I've probably been guilty of a few of those at some time or another, but hopefully nothing that really irritates people.