Am i the only one who though of Phoebe as stupid? Sylvester was not really arrogant.

[M]

In my opinion Sylvester was nice and had very good manners for someone of his stature. He did things logically. Phoebe on the other had I found arrogant. She judges Sylvester has a villain when she never even had a conversation with him. She fancies herself justified for the way she acts just because she doesn't like him. She refuses to even give him a chance. Honestly someone in her position should be over joyed that a duke is showing interest in her.

I haven't finished the book yet, but from what I've read that is the opinion i formed. When I read the reviews I was honestly surprised to read what other people are saying. I'm wondering if anyone else shares my opinion.

[Denicemarcell]

Can't say I share your opinion. I found Phoebe to be rash and hasty in her judgements. And she totally reaps the consequences of her actions.

[Leigh]

I never really understood the appeal of this book. I think I read it once.

[Pamela Su]

I do not agree with your opinion. I agree with Denice that Phoebe was rash and hasty, but she is still a fairly young lady with a fairly sheltered upbringing. We all have made snap judgements about people before.

Hers just led her to write a book that unfortunately mirrored very closely to his life. :)

Sylvester IS proud and aloof. I expect he comes off as a cold type of person which can put some people off. He is a nice guy, but you need time to get to know him. It is easy to get the wrong idea about him.

So I do not believe Phoebe was stupid. She just hasn't learned that you can't really judge people based on a few brief meetings.

[Gay]

Personally I thought the book had a lot of humor in it. How many people have not made a snap judgement on appearance only and have eat crow when you realized that when you got to know the person they were totally different. I enjoyed this book.

[Sandy]

This has always been one of my favorite Georgette Heyer books. I don't know why people analyze books. I just read and enjoy them.

[☯Emily]

This is one of my favorites too. First impressions are not usually accurate and this book shows that vividly.

[Faraday94]

This is one of my favourite Georgette Heyer books.I love the humour, the attraction of opposites,Phoebe falling into one scrape after another, and the farcically exaggerated secondary characters.

[[deleted user]]

Was Sylvester aloof - yes - his station engendered that. Was he arrogant - questionable - considering that the adherance to etiquette of the very station that commanded his aloofness precluded his ignoration or maltreatment of those beneath him in station. Though some of his class ignored this he did not. What he was willing to do for Phoebe and Tom whilst secluded in the little Tavern proves this. Was he emotionally withdrawn - a resounding yes - his brother who seems to have been half his heart died and left a gaping hole. It took a while for him to realize that rather than preserve the hole like an alter to his brother's memory he could fill it with another warm loving person and keep on living. The book ably showed his Learning process.
Phoebe was not a silly girl. Inexperienced - yes - and a bit gauche and unpolished, but what was to be expected of a girl who lost her mother early and experienced nothing but thoughtlessness from her Father and cruelty served up cold from her Stepmother.
She was so traumatized that the first person to speak to her kindly ( Sylvester's mother in the final chapter) instantly reduced her to tears. Ultimately this story shows how two sensitive but hurt people, not to mention very flawed and human, find and heal each other. They are both too pround to wear their hearts on their sleeve but once the guards are down by the end of the book you get the satisfying feeling that they will be very happy and whole together.
I can live with that. Quite liked the book.

[Lyn]

I love Georgette Heyer's Regencies. This one is not my favorite, but I enjoyed reading it. My opinion is that even if you love an author, not every book is for every person. An author and reader CONNECT emotionally through the book and some times it just doesn't click!

Now my favorite Heyer's is A CIVIL CONTRACT, but also THE GRAND SOPHY and THE RELUCTANT WIDOW.
How about those?

[Marita]

I don't think she was stupid, just someone who was very young and inexperienced and love-starved and who craved approval and thus couldn't always deal with not having it. This is why she found it hard to communicate her reluctance to marry Sylvester to her father and step-mother, and why she was so afraid to tell Sylvester about the book after they became friends. It was still annoying as hell, because you could see the Big Misunderstanding approaching from miles away, but it was at least sort of understandable. And yes she made blind assumptions but could at least admit her mistakes to herself.

Mind you, Sylvester wasn't blameless. He WAS arrogant, but this didn't make him a bad person. It just made him a willfully blind one. He knew his SIL's concerns about his guardianship but didn't make the effort to at least explain himself to her or try to persuade her to see things his way. His logic was usually perfectly rational but we all know people get stupid when they're in love sometimes. He found himself reacting emotionally rather than logically with the whole novel business, and convinced himself that she had 100% maligned him without allowing her a real chance to at least try to explain her side of the story. If he'd thought for a minute, he'd know she didn't intend the unflattering villainous comparisons, and if he wanted to know why she didn't warn him, all he had to do was freaking ask! He continued to hold on to this stupid theory and misjudge her and mistrust her at every turn in a vain attempt to stop feeling those icky feelings that just woouldn't go away. He clearly hadn't really got over losing his brother yet, and became emotionally impenetrable as a result-barring Phoebe who seemed to be immune to all his defensive walls.

So, IMO, they were just flawed human beings with pride and an instinct for emotional self-preservation in spades.

[Rhy]

God, yes.

There are all these qualities of arrogance, superciliousness--things the text and Phoebe want us, the reader, to perceive as Sylvester's faults. And Phoebe is a much clearer example of an arrogant, judgmental know-it-all.

A really great moment for this is at the inn, when Phoebe gets all offended on the behalf of the innkeeper and her daughter because Sylvester booked the entire building and rearranged who was going to sleep where.

Not only is she totally oblivious to the fact that he's doing her a favor both monetarily by dealing with room and board and socially by giving her a chaperone, she assumes she knows better than Sylvester what the innkeeper and her daughter want--even though Sylvester talked to them directly and Phoebe didn't. For all she knows they might have suggested those precise arrangements TO him.

She was worse than he was about all the things she disliked so much about him.