Regency and Ridicule

[marycrawford]

Every now and then, I make an attempt to find an author who writes historical romance as entertainingly as Georgette Heyer. So far I haven't had much luck.

Right now, I'm reading a novel that won the 1997 RITA award for best Regency romance, Lady's Companion by Carla Kelly, and the heroine has just told her wastrel aristocratic father to 'get a job'.

Not seek employment, or find work: get a job.

And then, when the heroine considers talking to a nursemaid about her personal concerns, she thinks that the nursemaid 'would only wonder what planet I had dropped down from'.

I quite like the story so far, but I think I'm going to pretend the heroine is a time traveller who doesn't quite have the vocabulary down yet.

(That would make for an entertaining plot, too, come to think of it. Is there such a genre as timetravel romance?)

Comments

[pentapus.livejournal.com]

Ever see Kate and Leopold? I mean, it was horrible, but the genre does exist.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Hee, no! I'll have to investigate. Though not very hard, if it's horrible. *G*

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Seconded. Really horrible. And that's despite having Hugh Jackman in it.

[pentapus.livejournal.com]

I find it's almost bearable if you catch accidental bits of it on TV so that it's reduced to completely out of context clips of Hugh Jackman being a British Duke. Because, I mean, I could have watched that for two hours.

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Ooh, guerilla Hugh Jacksman watching! I can see how that would work.

[kriscat.livejournal.com]

It's a HUGE genre that has everything from crappy Harlequins to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. A book I strongly recomend btw. The book takes place in 1945 and 1745, so it's not regency, but still a great long read.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

OH, of course! *slaps forehead*
I have heard of Outlander, I just can't remember if I've read it or not. Thanks for reminding me!

[kriscat.livejournal.com]

If you'd read it, you'd probably remembered it. If not, go read it again. ;) Mmmm redheaded scotts...

[dgcandace.livejournal.com]

I get periodic reports from one of my publishers as to what's selling well lately and what readers say they want (at conventions and such) and time-travel is supposedly a hard sell right now if you're a writer.

Of course, first-person is also supposedly a hard sell, which makes me roll my eyes. I mean, I could see if the narrator were an insufferable Mary-Sue who spoke entirely in dialect. But an insufferable protagonist is an insufferable protagonist, first person or not.

Time Traveler's Wife is a haunting and beautiful mainstream fic. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. And I've been to the library where the protagonist works!

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Heh, those reports sound interesting, though I can see where they would also be frustrating.

I think asking readers what they want is tricky as hell; they can only talk about what they already know they like, and what's already out there, which is too limiting. (Frex, nobody would have said "I really want to read a big fat novel about a Homo Sapiens woman growing up with Neanderthals" before Jean Auel's first book came out.)

Thanks for the rec of Time Traveler's Wife, I've been meaning to get around to reading that.

[emyrys.livejournal.com]

Nora Roberts wrote two related time traveling romance novels, which were just rereleased last year in one volume (I noticed them in the grocery store). I seem to remember that they were originally written early in her romance writing career, and so the writing wasn't as good as her later writing, but they came out when I was living alone, and in graduate school, and reading short, quick romance novels every night. (this was before I got sucked into fandom. Heh).

Georgette Heyer!! I haven't thought of her in years, but I loved her books back when I was in high school. And Barbara Cartland -- her writing style annoyed the crap out of me, but I'd just ignore the inane dialog ("And oh!....please...I am so....confused!..." and read for the characters & the wonderful historical tidbits about life in among the upper class Brits in that time period.

Since Cartland's books took place all around the world, I used to know the most obscure historical trivia. My European History teacher finally asked me where I'd learnt it all from, and I was too embarassed to tell her.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Aw! I only discovered Georgette Heyer last year, but I think if you wanted to reread her she would hold up well - her use of slang vocabulary is outrageous (I don't think anyone ever talked like that, Regency or no Regency) and she has an exclamation mark problem, but I absolutely love her sense of humour, her period detail and her characters.

I've never read Cartland, but now you remind me of how I used to pick up obscure facts from Donald Duck magazine. That was tricky to explain too. *g*

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I love Carla Kelly, but it's more for the straightforward decency of her characters than her use of period detail. For that kind of Heyer- (or Austen-)influenced language, I've had better luck in sf/f and mystery: Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia and sequels, Madeleine Robins's Petty Treason, and Kate Ross's Julian Kestrel mysteries.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I love Sorcery and Cecelia, and the sequels (sequelS? There's more than one now? Eee!) are on my to-read list, too. I haven't read the other two authors you mention, thanks very much for the tip - I'd love to read a good historical mystery in that setting.

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

Bwaa!! I must not have read that Carla Kelly -- that's pretty damn funny. :->

I read a bunch of different regency/georgean authors, but I wouldn't compare ~any~ of them to Heyer.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Heh, I now feel like I'm maligning the author a bit - I liked the book well enough to finish it, it has a very warm feel and the characters are likeable. It's just that the vocubulary and general period feel are off. (The heroine also talks about needing cash, feeling randy, etc. And at some point, a man is called a bastard, but 'appears to take no notice of this reflection on his parenthood'. Erm.)

I'm going to try the mystery authors recommended above, if I can find them here. It's tricky, because I don't really read Heyer primarily for the romance - I love her characters, her worldbuilding and her comedy, and most of the Regency I've read so far focuses more on the romance.

[mythdefied.livejournal.com]

There's a ton of time-travel romances out there, many of them Regency. I see them all the time here at the library when I shelve in the romance section. Unfortunately, you really have to suspend your disbelief for them. Well, actually it's more like beating it about the head until it's unconscious and in need of CPR.

You know, I was going to write a big, long essay about that here, but I think I'll save it for my LJ. Otherwise I'll hijack yours and that's not good.

Sufficed to say, yeah, they're out there and some are better than others. ("Some" meaning that probably only a couple will turn out to be worth your time. YMMV.) Unfortunately, as you and others have pointed out, the slang/colloquialisms are a huge problem.

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Dude! (Or, more in keeping with the topic, Miss!) I have no problem with your posting a long essay/rant about Regency timetravel books here at ALL, though if you'd rather post it at your LJ that's fine too, of course.

I really didn't know that time travel was a genre - I've heard of Outlander, and that's about it. Reading Heyer is pretty much my first foray into the whole field of romance, and I have no idea here to go from there. I'd rather prefer books where I didn't have to suspend my disbelief quite so hard.

[mythdefied.livejournal.com]

Well, part 1 of the essay ran close to 1900 words, so I stuck it in my LJ.

Yeah, I remember time travel romances from back when I was a teenager, so I think it's been around for a couple decades, now. I've only found a very few that were palatable, though. When I bother with romance at all these days, I tend to prefer the futuristic, scifi ones. Some of the authors are actually doing a decent amount of science research for them and I don't end up yelling at the book about laws of physics and such.