Recent reading

[troisoiseaux]

Read Return to Night by Mary Renault, mostly with a strong sense of second-hand embarrassment. Romance between a doctor in her mid-30s and an aspiring actor a decade her junior, set in England in the months before WWII. I quite liked the protagonist, Dr. Hilary Mansell, which made me feel all the more girl, RUN, you do not need these vibes in your life about the whole situation with Julian and his mother.

For most of the novel, my theory on why Julian's mother is Like That was that she's pretty sure he's gay, but (this being the 1930s) thinks it would be horribly gauche to acknowledge this out loud in any way and is instead trying to passive-aggressively stiff-upper-lip it out of him. The actual Watsonian explanation, eventually revealed, is that Julian's biological father was a "cad of an actor" rather than the dearly departed war hero Mr. Fleming— though, to be fair, this doesn't necessarily preclude my own theory. The Doylist explanation is, of course, Renault's Oedipus complex kink.

If I had a nickel for every Mary Renault book I've read that ends with the love interest almost committing suicide, I'd only have ten cents, but it's weird it happened twice.

Read Strange Weather In Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, which oddly enough is also about a woman in her 30s in a friendship-turned-romance with a significant age gap, although in this case, her love interest is thirty years her senior and (it's not as sordid as it sounds, I promise) had been her high school teacher. Reminded me of Tove Jansson's Fair Play, both in its structure of a novel in vignettes and in that it deals with similar themes of solitude and intimacy, albeit in different ways.

Read Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly, a warm and laugh-out-loud-funny contemporary fiction novel about a pair of siblings living in Auckland, New Zealand, navigating life in their mid-to-late 20s (Greta is a graduate student in comparative literature; Valdin spent eight years studying physics, had a breakdown, and became a comedian) and love (both of them end up living out their own gay rom-coms!) and their chaotic Russian-Maori-Catalonian family. Absolute 10/10.

Comments

[legionseagle]

To be fair to Elaine Fleming (and it's almost impossible for me to imagine circumstances in which I say that with a straight face, so do me credit) she did not have "an affair" with Julian's father. She married him. She would not have had sex with him voluntarily had she not believed them to be legally married. Because the marriage was bigamous (unbeknownest to her) the sex was extra-marital. There was a crucial piece of information missing at the time when she said "yes" which, had she known it, would have converted the "yes" into a "no".

Not in technical legal terms but in moral terms, however much of a pill Elaine Fleming was, she was also a rape victim.

[troisoiseaux]

Ah, yeah, I phrased that poorly— I've rewritten it, a bit. I honestly was a bit bewildered by that whole... conversation, both in that I had to read it twice to figure out the timeline of Julian's paternity, and just like. what. Is the point that it's genetic determinism/nature over nurture that Julian wants to be an actor?? Weird if so.

Also super uncomfortable, in retrospect (e.g., the gap between 1947 and 2021, but also, of actually thinking about the Details of the Reveal), that the narrative made the fact Mrs. Fleming reported the guy to his superior officer and got him dishonorably discharged sound like she Wanted To Speak To The Manager™ instead of reporting a rape. Yikes.

[osprey_archer]

(Hiding half the screen behind my arm so as to avoid Return to Night spoilers; I'm about halfway through right now.)

I'm so glad you liked Strange Weather in Tokyo! I read the book more or less blind and went a little OH when I realized it was going to be a romance between a woman and her former teacher (albeit more than a decade after the student graduated!) - but although I expected the book to become sordid or even skeevy it never did. It was a delicate and sensitive exploration of the age gap, I thought.

I remain extremely puzzled by the book's cover, which features a floating girl, and led me confidently to expect magical elements, of which the book contains none at all. It's a very eye-catching cover, so maybe someone in the publishing house just said "Screw truth in advertising, let's go with it!"

[troisoiseaux]

I read the book more or less blind and went a little OH when I realized it was going to be a romance between a woman and her former teacher

I did know what I was getting into, and was a little surprised that the romance part of things took so long to even be hinted at, let alone developed! I thought it was a very sweet book— although bittersweet, at the end. I like that it gave Tsukiko an alternative love interest, to make her romantic relationship with Sensei an active choice rather than one that arose out of sheer... orbital gravity, I suppose?

No idea what was going on with the book's cover, either. Maybe... it's a metaphor...?

[sovay]

For most of the novel, my theory on why Julian's mother is Like That was that she's pretty sure he's gay, but (this being the 1930s) thinks it would be horribly gauche to acknowledge this out loud in any way and is instead trying to passive-aggressively stiff-upper-lip it out of him.

Same, to the point where I still think it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the ostensible explanation in-text.

[troisoiseaux]

It is rather ironic that, as the first heterosexual Renault novel I've read, the vibes were remarkably not straight. I also kept longing for a novel where Hilary and her landlady (Lisa?) fell slowly in love over their quiet evenings sharing tea...

[sovay]

I also kept longing for a novel where Hilary and her landlady (Lisa?) fell slowly in love over their quiet evenings sharing tea...

Lisa. I'm almost willing to bet that exists on AO3.

[legionseagle]

I'm not sure that's entirely the gap between 1946 and 2021 so much as the gap between Mary "So Not Like Other Girls I'm On A Different Planet" Renault and her utter lack of empathy for anyone presenting as female.

I can certainly believe acting talent is heritable but (as Renault knows quite well and indeed writes superbly about in The Mask of Apollo) the reason you get acting dynasties is because the sprogs get all the opportunities from an early age but also get a first-hand look at how much work it takes to succeed and either decide they're interested in putting the work in or not. So definitely much more nurture than nature.

[legionseagle]

It does. Also the fusion with Lolly Willowes where Hilary is inducted into the coven and discovers that the Maiden is -- well, read it and see.

[legionseagle]

Though Sam, Hilary's definitely gay nephew (I mean, it might be the 1930s but "lives with an interior decorator" is a Sassoon-full of hairpins) who remembered Julian wistfully from Oxford suggested that everyone in his set hoped he was and was terribly disappointed not to get anywhere.

[troisoiseaux]

...wait, who? This is admittedly one of those books I set down and was immediately fuzzy on the details of what happened, but I just searched for likely key words ("Sam," "nephew," and "interior decorator") in my ebook copy and, nope, I'm coming up with nothing??

[legionseagle]

Try "aunt".

[regshoe]

I confess to liking Julian probably more than he deserves, although I agree Hilary would probably be best off running in the opposite direction... Yeah, the final chapter is bizarrely similar to the final chapter of The Charioteer, isn't it—in a way I really don't think Julian or Hilary deserved.

[regshoe]

Agree about the general not-straight vibes, and also I would definitely read the Hilary/Lisa version of the novel!

[sovay]

everyone in his set hoped he was and was terribly disappointed not to get anywhere.

That wouldn't change what his mother worries about, though, or is convinced she knows.

[regshoe]

IIRC the scene with Sam was cut from later editions (too gay for the publishers, perhaps?), so unless your ebook is based on the first edition it may not be there, unfortunately.

[legionseagle]

Oh, certainly not. I mean, if he was pinging the whole of the Oxford aesthetic set's gaydar, no wonder she worried.

[sovay]

...wait, who?

It was during the second week that, finding herself with a slack morning on the day when she was already free in the afternoon, she decided that it was time she went to town. She had some clothes to buy, and discovered a sudden discontent with the Cheltenham shops which had satisfied her for the past year. While she was in town (she did her best to make this into a casual afterthought) she would look up her nephew, Sam.

It had been with considerable pride that she had reached the status of an aunt at the age of nine. Sam, when he was of an age to appreciate the joke, had enjoyed it equally, and they had had a great deal of fun, when he went to school, arranging outings, which she had always preceded by a pompous and spinsterly note to his headmaster, executed in copperplate. It had been his father, whom her earliest recollections presented as a serious and responsible adult, who had always seemed to belong to a different generation. Sam was articled to a London solicitor now, and, since hers was a family in which established jokes died hard, when she rang up for him at the office she still went through a prim aunt-routine over the telephone. He shared rooms with a friend called James (if she had ever heard his second name she could never remember it), who had been up with him at Oxford. They were still excellent sources of university gossip, when one was in the mood.

Hilary found that, after a considerable lapse of time, the mood had overtaken her. She occupied her mind earnestly however, with her intention of buying clothes. She had reached lately what she felt to be a reasonable degree of frankness with herself. It did not extend, yet, to admitting that she proposed a journey of a hundred miles or so, mainly in the hope of hearing Julian's name mentioned by a young man who had been at a different college and who in all likelihood barely knew him by sight.

Having in the end cleared almost the whole day, she shopped at first conscientiously, then with unforeseen enjoyment and uncharacteristic extravagance. After this she rang up Sam, the joke coming off even more successfully than usual, since, in Sam's presence, the senior partner answered the 'phone. Half past five found them enjoying it again, retrospectively, while they toasted muffins over Sam's gas-fire. James, who was something in advertising or interior decoration (another point about which she was never quite clear), joined them soon afterwards. Thanks to his company, the talk drifted from family to Oxford with so little direction on her part that she could readily believe there had been none at all.

"I probably missed the chance of getting some uncensored information about you," she said, "a week or two ago. I ran into a man who must have been up with you, I should imagine, but I didn't think to ask him until too late."

"M-m?" inquired Sam, partly extricating himself from a slice of the Fuller's cake she had brought with her (this was another part of the aunt routine which had never lost popularity). "Name of who?"

"Fleming, unless I've remembered it wrong."

"Fleming, Fleming." Sam looked up, intelligently. "Oh. Good Lord, yes, I know the chap you mean. Funny how one forgets, he was on my staircase. Earnest little runt with the most fearful stammer. If he told you what his name was, I hope you had your mackintosh on."

Hilary put down the cup which, at the beginning of these remarks, she had found with disgust to be shaking slightly in her hand. "No, I don't think that can have been the one."

"Come to think of it," said Sam helpfully, "he might have got rid of the stutter by now. He was seeing a specialist about it, so that he could go into the Church."

With successful vagueness Hilary remarked, "I don't think it can have been. This one said he was producing a play." 

James who in the opposite corner had been involved with a rather leathery piece of muffin, swallowed and sat up. "My good Sam, I never knew anyone with such a parochial mind. Other colleges do exist, however regrettably, you  know. As if she'd remember H.B. Fleming five minutes after she'd met him. What about J.R.?"

"J.R.?" Sam gave a complete reprise of the dawning process, with, for Hilary, a quite unnerving effect. "Oh yes, of course the OUDS man. Quite likely, I didn't think. I was never as much in with that set as you were." He turned to Hilary. "Tall, striking-looking chap? Black hair?"

"That sounds more like it."

"You'd remember J.R." James decided. "Wouldn't she, Sam? More than striking, really, in what you might call the Apollo class. No, come, Sam, you must admit that. Girl I knew said she always wanted to stick a pin in him to see if he was real."

"And was he?" inquired Sam, unimpressed.

"Matter of fact, he was quite a harmless type when you knew him; you got not to notice it, somehow, after a bit." After a vaguely reminiscent pause, he added, "Lost his temper if anyone mentioned it. Funny, that."

"Did he?" said Sam interested. Hilary leaned back in her chair, and made herself unobtrusive, partly to listen, partly lest she should be asked for her impressions. Sam considered. "Might depend on who mentioned it, I suppose."

"No, nothing to it, really. I mean, just some typical lighthearted persiflage of old Prosser's; sort of thing anyone could have taken for granted, I'd have thought. Of course, he'd had one or two, we all had. Still I never knew it make him quarrelsome, any other time. If someone hadn't been quick, he'd have tipped Prosser off the window-sill into the quad. First floor window, too."

"You don't say? From what I heard . . ." Sam looked discreetly across Hilary, with one eyebrow raised.

"No," said James definitely. "I happen to know. That got said because of the way he let Lavenham tag along. Whether it was laziness, or plain good nature, or what, God knows. No one knew. I remember Tranter saying he asked him once. Seeing there was nothing in it, I mean, and knowing him pretty well, he felt he could."

"Did he get shot out of a window too?"

"Not in the least, I gathered. Fleming just uttered some bromide to the effect that Lavenham was human like anyone else if you treated him in a civilised manner. No, he was like that. Put up with anyone sooner than upset them. Don't you remember those dim girls one used to see him having coffee with? Always a crowd, though. Safety in numbers, I suppose."

"Queer type," said Sam profoundly. "He could act, I will say. Never did anything else of course. Scraped a third, I believe."

"Is he acting now?" asked James of Hilary. "I've wondered from time to time when his name would crop up in some notice or other. He was good, I mean. Even for Ouds."

"I believe only with some local amateurs; and producing, mostly."

"Funny," Sam ruminated, "how these Isis Idols peter out."

"The only thing was," said James, "they did say he wasn't very versatile. You know how he always went in for these weird characters, Caliban and so on. I remember, now I think of it, Toller told me once that he went all to fluff in a straight part. They had an idea of putting on Romeo and Juliet, I forget which year, banking on Fleming for Romeo, of course. Toller said he wasn't at all keen even to read it and when they got him down to it they could see why. Total loss, I believe. Stiff as a board."

"Odd," said Sam. He pondered. "Psychological, or something, I suppose."

"Oh I don't know. Just a nice, aimless sort of bloke, really, I think, with only one line. Wouldn't you say so?" He looked to Hilary for support.

"Very likely," she said. "He seemed quite cheerful and amusing. James, do stop wrestling with that burnt muffin and have some cake while there still is some. I've always deplored Sam's greed from his earliest years; I remember when he was at school..." She had never, she thought, really appreciated enough the uses of the aunt-routine. The conversation, thus derailed, was shunted without further trouble to a branch line.

On the journey home she focused her attention on her shopping with renewed care. With regard to the rest, she had succeeded only in unsettling emotions she would have done better to take in hand, while illuminating nothing at all.

[sovay]

I mean, if he was pinging the whole of the Oxford aesthetic set's gaydar, no wonder she worried.

Check. I misread your adversative.

[troisoiseaux]

Yeah, this scene was not in my copy! WILD.

[sovay]

Yeah, this scene was not in my copy!

I got it from a friend whose friend transcribed it from the first edition. It's such useful information about both Julian and Hilary, I think it was idiotic to cut it, but it never seems to have been restored. The Charioteer underwent edits throughout.

[troisoiseaux]

The Charioteer underwent edits throughout.

In terms of things that were cut, or put back in later??

[sovay]

In terms of things that were cut, or put back in later??

Things that were cut, again after the first edition. Lines throughout and the occasional scene as I recall. I am sure someone has analyzed how it changes the novel, but I don't happen to remember off the top of my head.

[troisoiseaux]

HUH. I will have to look into that.

[legionseagle]

Now, that I did not know.

Same with all the random syphilis in The Charioteer, come to think of it.

[regshoe]

I did not know about syphilis in The Charioteer! It was definitely the later, edited version that I read, so if and when I ever do re-read it I'll have to try and find the original.

[legionseagle]

And it's a happy, they don't die or attempt suicide, gay relationship! All they do is eat cake and reminisce!

No wonder it didn't survive into the second edition.

[legionseagle]

Just passing references but surprisingly relentless; apparently the dense lad on the ward only got called up once he'd managed "a negative Wasserman test" and there's a comment also about "male syphilitics with an air of quiet seediness" about them.

[troisoiseaux]

I'm not sure if I liked Julian, exactly, but I did feel sympathy for him. I would like both him and Hilary to be happy! I just suspect that they would be happier if far away from each other.

[sovay]

No wonder it didn't survive into the second edition.

I think it would be a public service to restore it.

[sovay]

I just suspect that they would be happier if far away from each other.

I actually think they'll be fine if they can get through Julian's mother-driven conviction of his essential unlovability and Hilary's Renault-driven conviction that she's Julian's starter relationship whose life's work will be to make him healthy enough to leave her! I didn't believe that entire passage about the Madonna of the Cave the first time I read it and I was in college! I know Renault believes it, but Renault believes a lot of hogwash! (Also the bit where Hilary resigns herself to the knowledge that the age difference means they can never have children, as a person whose mother was in her mid-thirties when she bore me and her late thirties for my brother, I call pffffft.)

[legionseagle]

I was today years old when I learnt it'd been deleted. I wrote a massive long fanfic in which Sam was a major character and people must have been reading it and going, "Who is this bizarre OMC?"

[troisoiseaux]

I just checked (the search function on my ebook app is really pulling its weight today) and my copy of The Charioteer does contain the line about "male syphilitics" but not about the "Wasserman test." Curiouser and curiouser.

[sovay]

I was today years old when I learnt it'd been deleted.

I am not willing to swear it's not in the edition I own (small paperback, pulp-style cover, mentions the MGM prize, can't find an image on the internet and have honestly never seen another copy), but the edition I own has been in storage for a demoralizing number of years, so I can't check for myself. I was sent the scene in question in the interim. I had no idea about the text of The Charioteer until it was mentioned to me. I glimpsed a British first edition once in a used book store in Vancouver, but I did not have the surplus limbs to mortgage for it.

I wrote a massive long fanfic in which Sam was a major character and people must have been reading it and going, "Who is this bizarre OMC?"

On the bright side, I'll go read that.

[legionseagle]

It's a crossover with Miss Marple.

[sovay]

I will have to look into that.

I have no ready links on The Charioteer as yet, but here's someone who did a side-by-side on the different editions of Purposes of Love (1939).

[troisoiseaux]

I don't know! It's not even because of the age gap, I just wasn't wholly convinced by their romantic chemistry in the novel. Also, Julian largely struck me as somehow simultaneously spineless and manipulative (if unintentionally so).

[troisoiseaux]

Ha, I found that one while frantically googling to figure out who Sam was once my ebook turned up nothing!

[sovay]

It's not even because of the age gap, I just wasn't wholly convinced by their romantic chemistry in the novel.

These things happen! (I was, which is why I disagree so vehemently with Renault about the ending.)

[osprey_archer]

I found Julian/Hilary more convincing than you did, but NONETHELESS I also pined for the Hilary/Lisa version of this novel. The only difficulty is that Lisa & Rupert are sort of a package deal (in a "she's not going to shuck him off" kind of way, not an OT3 one) and I'm not sure how Hilary would feel about that long-term, especially given the repetition of "I love you best out of everyone" as a sort of romantic incantation...

But, uh, maybe Rupert could die doing Heroic War Correspondent Stuff and then Hilary & Lisa could raise Lisa's child together in bucolic bliss.

[osprey_archer]

YES, that whole conversation was SO WEIRD. We're clearly meant to feel shocked and appalled by Mrs. Fleming's past behavior, but this is actually her most sympathetic moment in the whole book! She gets jerked around by this cad, who sexually assaults her and then tricks her into a bigamous marriage, and then she reports him to his commanding officer... and Julian's response is "I think he really loved you."

...I mean, I can see why Julian wants desperately to think the best of his biological father, especially considering his obsession with the idea that he himself has perhaps inherited an Innate Flaw. But also DUDE.

Also just baffled by what the Renault Approved (tm) response would be to finding oneself to be bigamously married. My impression is that she thinks Mrs. Fleming's shock and horror are hopelessly conventional lies to herself about her own feelings (lying to oneself being the cardinal Renault sin) and that if she was TRUE to herself and her feelings she would have... continued to be bigamously married to a guy who lied to her about his marital status. It's not like being lied to about something so massive might change someone's feelings or anything.

[troisoiseaux]

I found Julian/Hilary more convincing than you did

That seems to be generally the case, and really, I can't explain why they just didn't click for me! (Part of the problem is that this is one of those books I blanked on completely as soon as I set it down, so literally, I don't remember what put me off.) I suspect Julian's immaturity rankled because, rather than in spite of, the fact he's basically my age...

[osprey_archer]

I think it's definitely easier to forgive immaturity in characters who are younger than we are - just as it's easier to forgive immaturity in people who are younger rather than our own age. Seeing a peer act like that is kind "Ugh, stop letting the side down!"

[osprey_archer]

To be honest I suspect that Mrs. Fleming's explanation, while true as far as it goes, is also her way of deflecting attention from this other subterranean reason for her disapproval. Julian thinks he's finally got to the bottom of her attitude toward him BUT IN FACT there's still another layer he never managed to excavate.

Now that Julian's announced his engagement to Hilary, I'm sure sure Mrs. Fleming will figure out some way to both continue dreading that he is secretly gay AND resent Hilary for stealing Julian away from her. She seems very resourceful. That circle can undoubtedly be squared somehow.

[troisoiseaux]

Mrs. Fleming will figure out some way to both continue dreading that he is secretly gay AND resent Hilary for stealing Julian away from her

Well, obviously it's that horrid Hilary's fault for preying on her poor, confused boy. He'd never marry her if it wasn't a marriage of convenience, after all! //sarcasm

[osprey_archer]

It occurs to me that Mrs. Fleming's potential subterranean dread that Julian is gay may be mixed with a guilty and never fully articulated hope for that very same thing, because then she will ALWAYS be the woman that he loves best in the world. She can't and WON'T believe that he really loves Hilary. OBVIOUSLY he's just confused.

[ethelmay]

"weird characters, Caliban and so on"

Now I want to see Julian mentoring Lawrie Marlow, who also "needed odd parts" and famously wanted to play Caliban.

[troisoiseaux]

Say what you will about Renault's novels, there's just something about them that makes for really good crossover material.