i'm up too late again due to dreading work, fine

Every time I read Georgette Heyer, I get hit all over again by the fact she's actually really good at the Regency format in the generic sense, so good I don't really feel like it's generic no matter how paint by numbers it would be in any other author's hands. She just gets it right, and I know better--I do--but every time, I start sliding her into the Austen mode and then re-read something like Black Sheep and screech to a halt when the plot meticulously and properly goes from 'Regency standard but adorable shenanigans' to 'what the fuck just happened?'

It shouldn't happen anymore, and yet.



She does this more than you think, mostly because her name is "Georgette" and that sounds like a vicar's wife that thought racy was wearing less than three petticoats to bed or something. And if you read her back catalogue and do Frederica and Arabella and The Quiet Gentleman and even Unknown Ajax, The Grand Sophy, The Nonesuch, and Charity Girl, all wonderful but also very Regency, it's an impression that sticks (at least until you re-read much later and start getting suspicious). At that point you get to Bath Tangle and are like 'ooh, a little racy there Georgette, hehe' because-well, it is, seriously--but you think to yourself because her name is Georgette she just innocently wrote some of that without any idea how it looked and I bet you also really thought Serena and Ivo's wanted to get married super fast just to avoid the humdum about being engaged twice.

(Hint: no, it really wasn't. Ivo and Serena were engaged in some of the most creative foreplay in history and used other people to do it for years, and I honestly think the main issue was two tops learning the value of maybe tossing a coin to decide who's bottoming tonight. I'm serious; all this could have been avoided if they had a shilling around somewhere the first time around but were too rich to have coined money. All set to hunting metaphors and sure, saying he'll mount her while in London gave you pause, but by the end, 'taking fences' has some unsettling connotations.)

People talk about Venetia (rake, orgies, hero possibly (definitely) nailed the heroine's mom), and Cotillion (my personal favorite) and The Masqueraders (all the crossdressing and vague sexual identity crises you never knew existed in that combination) and the Georgian Gothic saga that includes the French revolution with a genuinely unsettling heroine and an honest to God fucking scary hero (for two generations, even), and I agree. All of them are off chart, and Cotillion in the bargain confuses and upsets you because you're seriously invested in Kitty not getting involved with Jack and Freddie's awesome but the plot is not reassuring you because Regency likes reforming rakes, the fuckers and within you is found a hatred of rakes which you pretend isn't really hypocritical but Freddie.

However, I'd like to put up an argument that Black Sheep is the weirdest just on principle that no, you couldn't have seen that coming and you weren't supposed to. Because it's fucking sneaky about it, and you can't tell me she didn't do that deliberately just to fuck with her readers. This isn't like The Reluctant Widow where it starts off with '...seriously, what?' and goes to secret doors and shootings and French spies and super creepy-ass dandy murder-cousins.

The Black Sheep tricks you into a state of 'oh, this is socially impossible love because Regency what shall they do' because she tricked you on purpose and you genuinely can't work out how this will be fixed (because Regency). And Georgette says 'I love the smell of social expectations in the morning and it's delicious when broiled with a light wine sauce, tell me what you think'.

Black Sheep goes from 'okay, normal fortune hunter chasing spinster heroine's niece' to 'black sheep mysterious uncle of fortune hunter, so he's kind of an ass, but okay' and you think you have this, right? No, you don't, but it's adorable you think that. The black sheep hero 'wait, he eloped with and seduced the heroine's brother's deceased wife and mother of the niece?' because holy shit that's kind of not a small social or family issue and while you're still reeling, '...prostitutes?' and plot. I'm serious; the prostitutes solved like all the major problems, and some ruthless kidnapping for justice takes care of the rest.

I am not going to tell you how these things fit together to a truly byzantine whole, but I will tell you to read it and you tell me the moment you had to actually stop a second because 'what the hell just happened' comes out of your mouth.

Runner Up For Huh: Sprig Muslin, which doesn't exactly violate the standards of Regency but circles them mockingly like daring you to be suspicious. Also, like Charity Girl and the other Runner Up for Huh, The Foundling, Georgette gets much more invested in anything that isn't the main romance and runs with it.

Sprig Muslin is worth anything for the existence of Amanda. It's also the best example of a story in which the hero and main character stumble into someone else's story and have no idea what to do so go with it. You will remember Amanda when you forget the hero and his love interest and pretty much all the plot because Georgette forgot the hero and the love interest and the romance to plow into the wonder that is Amanda's determination to marry her man and God help you if you got in her way (even by accident).

The Foundling has a similar situation, in which the focus is absolutely not about the romance and even the hero gets co-oped into an entirely different story, one in which he spends an inordinate amount of time keeping a gorgeous but not terribly bright girl from quite literally by accident giving up her virtue for a purple dress (seriously) when not escaping his own kidnapping/murder or toying with hiring his kidnapper/murderer as a butler (on purpose).

There's more to the story, I know--like the love interest and the romance--but I didn't read for that; I read to find out if he could get the girl married to someone--anyone--before someone gave her a purple dress and no, I'm not being metaphorical but Georgette sure as fuck was and how. Because the girl wanted a purple dress and a gold ring on her finger she told the hero sincerely, but as it turns out, she wanted the purple dress more, and I had to stop now to laugh because that wasn't even subtle but it took me two reads to believe it and between readings, I start wondering if I was overthinking it and then read it again and no, I'm not.



Georgette Heyer's works, ladies and gentlemen: sometimes, I think she basically chose a career of trolling the Regency genre just to see if anyone noticed.

Comments

[dine]

as a looooong-time fan of GH's works, this is a fantastic analysis - you're on target in many ways! she definitely wrote stuff you just don't find in other "Regency" novels; I like to think of her trolling readers and enjoying every moment. I think one reason her handling of the genre differs from most novels written by modern authors out there is that she pretty much invented the genre, and most of the others ended up using her works as a template, but didn't always have the originality (or sense of character) that GH did.

contemporary authors like Austen were basically writing current events, so their works don't really fit into the genre as most of us define it, imo

[pensnest]

So much fun, GH. I find I much prefer the stories in which something else is happening, or in which the traditional romance formula is subverted. I mean, Cotillion. Jack struts onto the scene as the classic leading man, and gradually the heroine (and the reader) understands that he is not at all a person she wants to spend the rest of her life with, and Freddie. A lot of people could benefit from reading this book, many of them romance writers.

So many of her stories have something delightfully offbeat about them, usually an unconventional heroine or hero—Sophy or Drusilla, or Adolphus or Hugo. I think it'd be quite fun to read the Heyer romances in order of conventionality, starting with the 'classic' romances like 'These Old Shades' and 'Regency Buck' and moving through the increasing surprises. I wonder what that order would be.

And now I am filled with frustration, for my books are packed and unobtainable for quite a while, and I want to re-read all the Heyers I have not read for ages.

[fyrdrakken]

I do not as a general rule read Regency romances (though I need to get around to reading the rest of Jane Austen's work -- I forget if those count), but I make a big exception for Georgette Heyer. A few years back Amazon had a Kindle sale on her work and I bought like twenty or thirty at once. I haven't read them all yet -- I've been saving them up, because they're a finite resource and once they're all read there'll never be another new Heyer. (Not counting Amazon sometimes releasing some more of her back catalogue to Kindle -- I know I don't have all of them yet.) But periodically I get in a mood and spend a week going through like a book a day. I have not kept track of which I have and have not read yet, because a re-read wouldn't exactly be a tragedy. (If I weren't currently in an Avengers fanfic mood, I might be dipping into the Heyer folder on the Kindle again in the next week or two.)

[metaphortunate]

Yes, yes, yes. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/ her infinite variety. She is the best and she trolls so hard. I started These Old Shades and I was like "Heh, if she wrote this today it'd be slashy....jeez, this really is slashy....HOLY SHIT THIS HAD BETTER BE A GIRL IN DISGUISE."

~in disguise~. Joining The Masqueraders in the small but highly popular genre of Fictional Heroes Who Are Clearly Desperately Happy To Have Found Beloveds Who Are Female Enough To Satisfy The Laws Of The Land But Much Prefer Wearing The Accoutrements Of Men, If You Get What I Mean And I Think You Do.

[seperis]

Yes, yes, yes. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale/ her infinite variety. She is the best and she trolls so hard.

Oh God, yes.

I started These Old Shades and I was like "Heh, if she wrote this today it'd be slashy....jeez, this really is slashy....HOLY SHIT THIS HAD BETTER BE A GIRL IN DISGUISE."

I wrote a review of it right after reading and seriously, that was my reaction plus "WHY IS NO ONE AT THIS PARTY WEIRDED OUT BY THE CREEPSTER" to "THEY ARE ALL CREEPSTERS". And then Leonie was crazypants, so there is that.

~in disguise~. Joining The Masqueraders in the small but highly popular genre of Fictional Heroes Who Are Clearly Desperately Happy To Have Found Beloveds Who Are Female Enough To Satisfy The Laws Of The Land But Much Prefer Wearing The Accoutrements Of Men, If You Get What I Mean And I Think You Do.

Dude, the twins get together with their spouses for dinner and family crossdressing parties. This story should exist somewhere by now.

[metaphortunate]

She has to be crazypants to hold her own in a family like that! I think she does rather well. :)

[majoline]

I have never wanted to read her books until right now. *makes a note*