tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8855164105075009801..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Notes on Lady Audley's Secret - How clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of the tea-trayAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-329086577263126092013-02-13T08:20:59.778-06:002013-02-13T08:20:59.778-06:00Hard to unsee, and in the case of this book, helpf...Hard to unsee, and in the case of this book, helpful - Audley makes more sense if he is gay, whatever language I should use to fit him more appropriately into his time.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-6399714967702989522013-02-13T07:51:00.971-06:002013-02-13T07:51:00.971-06:00It's been too long since I read this, but I re...It's been too long since I read this, but I remember loving it. I'm aware of its shortcomings, but I loved it anyway. <br /><br />I was in graduate school in the late 1980's when homosocial bonding in 19th century fiction was a major discussion topic. The century is full of men marrying their best friend's relation, women doing the same thing too. It's very hard to 'unsee' once you notice it.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06906212382849291562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-39360033356038319082013-02-12T23:16:53.021-06:002013-02-12T23:16:53.021-06:00I like the idea that Braddon is undermining her ch...I like the idea that Braddon is undermining her characters, or our idea of what they should be, as well as mucking around with suspense. I wish she were. That would also be a better book. So many better books could spring form this one!Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-61623074786972815352013-02-12T18:23:33.658-06:002013-02-12T18:23:33.658-06:00I also couldn't unsee the homosexual overtones...I also couldn't unsee the homosexual overtones, just like I can't unsee them in Brideshead Revisited. I don't think we're meant to unsee them, and maybe not just for sensational purposes. I agree with Rohan, that Braddon often comes off as lazy in this book, but I wondered sometimes if there wasn't method in it--many of the characters are stupid and inconsistent and unpredictable--maybe on purpose, or am I being too generous? If Braddon was ahead of her time with the detective fiction elements, why not with undermining novelistic expectation generally? I can't give you any evidence to support these notions; I read the book a few years ago and I don't know where it's got to. But I have another novel of hers here--The Serpent's Tail, I think--it would be good to test these notions with it.Colleenhttp://jamandidleness.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-84339245774429819432013-02-12T11:19:10.341-06:002013-02-12T11:19:10.341-06:00Oh, Dickens, no, that's a whole other level of...Oh, Dickens, no, that's a whole other level of writing and imagination right there.<br /><br />Shelley, what is your taste for Wilkie Collins? The best passages in <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i> are not so far from good Collins. Not the best Collins, though - no Count Fosco or Miss Clack to be found in <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i>.<br /><br />Actually, maybe the right question is: what is your taste for concept compared to execution? Braddon is more of a conceptual novelist, so much of the pleasure of this book is in the conceit, not the execution. Trollope is temperamentally and creatively opposite. Dickens, of course, does everything.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67451672998947372902013-02-12T10:57:33.636-06:002013-02-12T10:57:33.636-06:00I think I read this book. But my only memory of it...I think I read this book. But my only memory of it was how grateful it made me for Dickens and Trollope.Shelleyhttp://dustbowlstory.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10142170065301957322013-02-12T08:48:24.870-06:002013-02-12T08:48:24.870-06:00Ha, yes, "a third" is just a metaphor! ...Ha, yes, "a third" is just a metaphor! There are only maybe one or two other sections as clever as the one I describe above - maybe none quite so deviously playful. <br /><br />The weaknesses of the novel are perhaps why it does not do any harm to play around with Robert's homosexuality or Lady Audley's "madness" or other Strong Female Character qualities - our fan fiction may actually improve the novel! Braddon failure to "think through" encourages me to do it for her.<br /><br />Thanks, Rohan, for providing an answer to Lucy's question. Balzac has a couple of (likely, plausibly) homosexual characters in his novels thirty years earlier, and thirty years sounds about right for the transmission of shocking ideas from French to English fiction. The "French novel" theme in Braddon caught my attention.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-64893071660173296242013-02-12T07:19:05.021-06:002013-02-12T07:19:05.021-06:00A third as good? I think you're being generous...A third as good? I think you're being generous! I enjoy LAS (and my students typically eat it up) but really, it's hack work, isn't it? Braddon creates some great moments and shows just enough skill in it to make me frustrated that she didn't bother to make it a better novel. As far as I can figure out, for instance, she doesn't really think through whether Lady Audley is a villain or a victim: while these categories are simplistic in the hands of a good novelist, Braddon's attempts to have it both ways have always struck me as lazy. To put it another way, Helen is no Becky Sharp.<br /><br />Richard Nemesvari has a good article in Studies in the Novel on 'Male Homosocial Desire in Lady Audley's Secret' - the main title of the essay is "Robert Audley's Secret." Cute. From his introduction:<br /><br />"The concept of the "homosexual," therefore, as it has come to be understood in the twentieth century, was being formulated at almost the exact historical moment sensation fiction first achieved notoriety. It is perhaps not surprising that sensation authors found ways to work this newly-arisen "category" into their texts, which after all were intended to startle, if not appall, their audience."Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-68953462875049954772013-02-12T06:25:01.712-06:002013-02-12T06:25:01.712-06:00Agree that it is very difficult to 'unsee'...Agree that it is very difficult to 'unsee' the Robert/George element. I wonder who first realised it or whether it's a purely modern interpretation. CharmedLassiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08408541277096433664noreply@blogger.com