Stewart, Mary - The Ivy Tree
Thu, Jun. 5th, 2008 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterOr: My First Gothic
Mary Grey (The Heroine) is wandering along in Northumberland when she's accosted by handsome Connor Winslow (The Dark Brooding Man), man in charge of the estate Whitescar (The House). He's the nephew of the current owner of Whitescar, and he mistakes Mary for his cousin Annabel, who was the favorite of said owner but who ran away eight years ago and is supposedly dead. Also, their meet cute (is it a "meet danger" in gothics?) is that Connor immediately threatens to drown Mary before learning she's not Annabel.
A scheme is hatched! Connor and his sister Lisa persuade Mary to impersonate Annabel in order to secure Whitescar in her grandfather's will. As one does! If her grandfather wills it to Annabel, Mary will then turn it over to Connor, who feels like he deserves it after all the work he puts in. Sundry complications ensue, including the arrival of cousin Julie, who is apparently the spitting image of Annabel.
I am not sure the gothic genre is one for me, as I found myself bored by most of the book. The assorted character interactions were a bit interesting, but as the secrets of Annabel's past and her reasons for fleeing eight years ago were revealed, I found myself longing for more secret clones kept in vats of suspicious liquid, wings, swords that are demons, and other sundry manga tropes.
Also, when the Big Reveal was revealed, I reacted by wanting the throw the book at something.
Spoilers
I feel having your first person narrator reveal herself to actually be Annabel through it all is cheating! I reread the first chapter, and Stewart does cleverly hide things by keeping Mary/Annabel's thoughts to a minimum and having her explain most things via dialogue. And the bit about thinking about Adam in the Garden of Eden was clever. But still! The whole physical description of Connor was like she was meeting him for the first time, and in general, I just feel cheated.
Also, there's this odd desire to keep things realistic in the book that didn't work for me. Annabel-as-Mary comments several times on how the impersonation scheme is something that only works in fiction, and that breaking of the fourth wall made me question the rationality of her decision to pose as Mary in the first place. And then there's the whole "I will let Adam think I'm Mary-as-Annabel so he won't know I'm actually Annabel!" thing that just had me going "Bzuh?"
I am not exactly sure why this didn't work for me when secret clones, evil twins, and secret clones of evil twins totally make sense in manga, but I suspect part of it is because in manga, everyone in the story acts like it makes total sense, so it's easier for me to suspend my disbelief.
... also, there's that whole fantasy element that's missing.
On the other hand, I brought Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting and Barbara Michaels' Into the Darkness to Taiwan with me, so I will experiment a little more on gothics. But seriously! I wanted more leprosy and vast international conspiracies and people who are actually Lucifer!
Mary Grey (The Heroine) is wandering along in Northumberland when she's accosted by handsome Connor Winslow (The Dark Brooding Man), man in charge of the estate Whitescar (The House). He's the nephew of the current owner of Whitescar, and he mistakes Mary for his cousin Annabel, who was the favorite of said owner but who ran away eight years ago and is supposedly dead. Also, their meet cute (is it a "meet danger" in gothics?) is that Connor immediately threatens to drown Mary before learning she's not Annabel.
A scheme is hatched! Connor and his sister Lisa persuade Mary to impersonate Annabel in order to secure Whitescar in her grandfather's will. As one does! If her grandfather wills it to Annabel, Mary will then turn it over to Connor, who feels like he deserves it after all the work he puts in. Sundry complications ensue, including the arrival of cousin Julie, who is apparently the spitting image of Annabel.
I am not sure the gothic genre is one for me, as I found myself bored by most of the book. The assorted character interactions were a bit interesting, but as the secrets of Annabel's past and her reasons for fleeing eight years ago were revealed, I found myself longing for more secret clones kept in vats of suspicious liquid, wings, swords that are demons, and other sundry manga tropes.
Also, when the Big Reveal was revealed, I reacted by wanting the throw the book at something.
Spoilers
I feel having your first person narrator reveal herself to actually be Annabel through it all is cheating! I reread the first chapter, and Stewart does cleverly hide things by keeping Mary/Annabel's thoughts to a minimum and having her explain most things via dialogue. And the bit about thinking about Adam in the Garden of Eden was clever. But still! The whole physical description of Connor was like she was meeting him for the first time, and in general, I just feel cheated.
Also, there's this odd desire to keep things realistic in the book that didn't work for me. Annabel-as-Mary comments several times on how the impersonation scheme is something that only works in fiction, and that breaking of the fourth wall made me question the rationality of her decision to pose as Mary in the first place. And then there's the whole "I will let Adam think I'm Mary-as-Annabel so he won't know I'm actually Annabel!" thing that just had me going "Bzuh?"
I am not exactly sure why this didn't work for me when secret clones, evil twins, and secret clones of evil twins totally make sense in manga, but I suspect part of it is because in manga, everyone in the story acts like it makes total sense, so it's easier for me to suspend my disbelief.
... also, there's that whole fantasy element that's missing.
On the other hand, I brought Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting and Barbara Michaels' Into the Darkness to Taiwan with me, so I will experiment a little more on gothics. But seriously! I wanted more leprosy and vast international conspiracies and people who are actually Lucifer!
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Sat, Jun. 7th, 2008 03:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Sat, Jun. 7th, 2008 09:06 pm (UTC)Well, for over-the-top, you can't beat The Monk by Matthew Gregory "the Monk" Lewis. The only book he's known for and it is a doozy.
Note: probably pretty offensive to Catholics, and the prose is really, unbelievably awful. The man could not write. But it doesn't matter when you're making one horrid discovery after another!
Mrs. Radcliffe, queen of Gothic! The Romance of the Forest made me laugh (the plot was being rather obviously tweaked in order to give people MORE ANGST!) but it's very moody and conveys a fine sense of the Gothic. And of course there is The Castle of Udolfo; you must read it, everyone must read Udolfo, after all, Austen's Catherine enjoyed it so much!
ANYTHING by Elizabeth Braddon. She wrote hundreds of novels, and the woman could write. She's best known for Lady Audley's Secret (fabulous!) and for The Doctor's Wife, the latter of which she wrote as a response to Madame Bovary, because she thought it wasn't a realistic depiction of the life of an imaginative woman. I really liked her character in The Doctor's Wife who is a writer of three-volume Gothic tales.
I cannot let the list lie without mentioning the badly titled Uncle Silas by LeFanu. I think LeFanu's novels are not particularly good in general, but in that one he maintained the Gothic mood so beautifully, and wound it up so tightly, that the reader is ready to spring out of the chair screaming by the climatic scene. I have never had my feelings so effectively harrowed.
I am also fond of Victorian blood-and-thunder, for which I favor Alcott and Collins. However, this comment is quite long enough, and I will shut up now!
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Sun, Jun. 8th, 2008 10:44 am (UTC)