Hello, my bibliophilic friends!
Since I’m rather preoccupied with Book VI right now (and for preoccupied, read mildly obsessive), I don’t have much of a reading list for this weekend, but I did happen stumble upon Julia Quinn’s new release, The Lost Duke of Wyndham, as I was grocery shopping today. Since it never does to look a gift Quinn in the mouth, swoosh it went into my grocery basket and thence homeward among the raisin bran and fat-free milk.
I’ve been having a bit of a Byron urge (the poetry rather than the man; Byron himself has never really been my type, despite all those wonderful Gothic heroes he spawned), so I’ve also squirreled away his mock-epic poem Don Juan for this weekend.
In the meantime, I’m trying to find a synonym for the subject of a human sacrifice. (Yep, being a writer means you get to dwell on all sorts of macabre things– given all the ghoulish things I’ve looked up over the last few months, if the CIA ever went through my google list, they’d think I was a crazed Regency ax murderer who likes to sing Italian arias in early nineteenth century court dress while I ritually sacrifice my victims to Kali). Votary? Sacrificiant? Victim? Sacrificee? I could have sworn there was a specific term out there….
What will you be up to this weekend?
In other words, Pink V has a cover!
Covers are always a game of roulette– we’ve all heard the horror story about the three armed maiden on one of Christina Dodd’s early covers– but I’ve been exceptionally lucky with mine so far. No mullets, no bulging thews, no women busting out of their bodices, no extraneous limbs. In this case, I lucked out even more than usual, since the woman in the painting looks very much as I imagine Charlotte.
Of course, the disclaimer is that the cover may still be tinkered with a bit before it goes to press. That happened with Crimson Rose, where those of you who own the book may have noticed that the images on line, including the one on this website, differ slightly from the one on your bookshelf. (I probably should get around to fixing that one of these days.) But while the lettering may move around a bit, the Pink V cover should wind up looking mostly as you see it here.
Courtesy of my new favorite quotation, from Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night:
“[H]owever realistic the background, the novelist’s only native country is Cloud-Cuckooland, where they do but jest, poison in jest: no offense in the world.”
Indeed!
The comment is made in the context of apologizing for having arranged various bits of the historical record to suit the author’s fancy, but Sayers conveys a much deeper truth: no matter how precise an author may attempt to be, we are, in the end, purveyors of fiction. We deal in airy nothings made concrete by the application of a pen. Our works are, in essence, epistles from Cloud-Cuckooland.
Sayers borrows from Hamlet there with the whole “poison in jest” bit, but what it made me think of was A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream with its description of poets as those who “give to airy nothing/ a local habitation and a name.”
I’m quite happy to claim Cloud-Cuckooland as my local habitation.
Right now, I’m supposed to be writing a Q&A with myself for the back of the paperback edition of The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (due out in January of ‘09!). The fundamental problem with this exercise is that I already know the answer to any question I might think to ask myself. This somewhat puts a damper on the process.
So, once again, I’m asking for your help. Is there anything– anything at all– that you have ever wanted to know about The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, the Pink Series, the writing process, dashing spies, or the price of tea in China? (Well, not that last, but you get the idea). You can post your questions here or email them to me at willig@post.harvard.edu.
Thank you!!
Now that I’ve gotten over my Elizabeth George kick, I can finally dig into that pile of books my amazing college roommate gave me last week. There have also been a few shopping indiscretions since last I posted (also known as Why I Should Not Be Allowed into Bookstores). Despite the fact that I now have far too many books to choose from, I’ve managed to narrow down this weekend’s reads to the following:
1. Austenland by Shannon Hale.
Despite loving the Austen books, I’ve been very wary and more than a little bit cynical about all the modern spin-offs that have mushroomed on the shelves recently. I adore Melissa Nathan’s Pride, Prejudice & Jasmine Field, but I otherwise tend to stay away from Austen-named books– until someone recommended Austenland to me this week. The premise is a clever take-off on Austen mania, a Pride and Prejudice obsessed American traveling to an Austen-themed resort. I’m ridiculously excited about reading it.
2. Captives of the Night by Loretta Chase.
Anything by Loretta Chase is always pure gold. Her research… her use of language…. Don’t even get me started. So when this appeared in the stack my roommate gave me, it went right to the top of the pile (despite the man with the strange haircut on the cover. Regency heroes should not use that much hair gel).
3. Journal of a Residence in India by Maria Graham.
Proof positive that the plucky, globe-trotting Englishwoman isn’t merely the invention of modern novelists, Maria Graham zigzagged across India in 1809. She explored erotic drawings in remote caves outside of Bombay, attended nautch dances thrown by natives of Calcutta, and camped her way across the countryside, all the while remaining every inch a gentlewoman. Her journal makes fascinating reading– and a great rejoinder to those who like to begin sentances with “Women in the nineteenth century would never have….”
What are you reading?
Despite the fact that he has no flowery title to call his own, Lord Vaughn has proved one of the most elusive of my heroes– at least in the looks department.
Ironically, I’ve probably described him in more detail than any of my other heroes (when you’ve hung around for three books, you tend to get more than your fair share of physical descriptions), so we know that he’s of average height but seems taller, that his build is wiry, that his hair is dark and suspiciously frosted with silver (to match his black and silver clothes), that his lips are thin and quick to quirk, and that he has deep shadows beneath his eyes. And so on and so on.
Despite all these individual details, many have commented to me that they have trouble picturing Vaughn. You’re not alone. While I was writing Crimson Rose, the image I had in mind was Sean Bean as Lovelace in the BBC adaptation of Clarissa– although, as I was quick to point out to anyone who asked, Vaughn doesn’t actually look all that much like Bean. I know, I know. It doesn’t make much sense. What I had in mind was more a similarity of soul, as it were (although, since Vaughn would object to that term, let’s call it a similarity of motivation, instead). Bean’s Lovelace is a practiced rake, the sort who views seduction as a sport, somewhat akin to shooting grouse. The more wary the quarry, the greater the challenge. But, um, yes, Lovelace was blond and Vaughn most certainly isn’t.
As I was writing, other comparisons that came to mind were Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes (he has the long, thin features down and something of Vaughn’s air of herculean self-control), the guy who plays Lynley in the dramatizations of the Elizabeth George novels (aspects of his appearance are right, but the character is all wrong), and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler (without the little mustache), but none really hit the spot.
I think this inability to pin Vaughn down visually says something deeper about Vaughn as a character. First, Vaughn is a creature of deception for whom every appearance is a performance, every item of clothing a costume (I have serious doubts as to the veracity of that silver in his hair). He creates a shifting show in which the object– for Vaughn, at least– is to prevent us from pinning down anything concrete about him. Second, and in direct contrast to Mary, Vaughn has always operated entirely on strength of character rather than looks. To be frank, his looks aren’t much to write home about. It’s the personality that animates them that makes him so entirely riveting. In that, he has more than a little bit in common with Charles II, who was famously ugly and yet still gets my vote for Monarch With Whom I Would Most Like to Have Drinks.
Even so, it would still be rather nice to have a concrete physical image of Vaughn. Please help me out here! As you can tell, my cinematic lexicon is limited. When you read about Vaughn, who do you picture?
Are you a re-reader?
Every so often, despite the presence of new books just begging to be read, I go on re-reading kicks. Sometimes, these are seasonal, even if the books themselves have nothing to do with a particular season (Barbara Michaels’ Ammie Come Home and Here I Stay are autumn books for me, while Angela Thirkell’s August Folly, Wild Strawberries and The Brandons are early summer), other times they have to do with a fleeting mood or impression. Some of these links are really rather bizarre. A few weeks ago, a chance comment about apple cores made me think of the street urchin, Sim, in Judith Merkle Riley’s A Vision of Light, who betrays his former poverty by always eating his apples core and all– so naturally, I had to go and re-read that whole series, right then.
Right now, despite a whole pile of new books given to me just yesterday by my brilliant college roommate (the same brilliant college roommate who first introduced me to the works of Eva Ibbotsen, Loretta Chase, Lois McMaster Bujold and Charlaine Harris), I’m on one of my re-reading kicks. This time, it’s Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series, which I’m shamelessly re-reading entirely out of order. I started Thursday with Payment in Blood, followed it up with A Great Deliverance, and right now I’m In the Presence of the Enemy.
Given the length of the series, I have a feeling I’ll be occupied for most of the holiday weekend– unless something else catches my attention and launches me on a different re-reading kick. Like all eight books in the Anne of Green Gables series…. It has distinct possibilities.
How are you planning to entertain yourself this weekend?
Happy Memorial Day!
Hello, my fellow procrastinators! I’d like to invite you over to History Hoydens, where one of my favorite authors, Tasha Alexander, kindly consented to take over my blog for the day.
Tasha is an author of many talents. (And I’m not just saying this because she relieved me of having to do my post for the day!). The bulk of her books, And Only to Deceive, A Poisoned Season, and A Fatal Waltz, follow the adventures of the freshly widowed Lady Emily Ashton through the drawing rooms of late Victorian London, Paris, and Vienna. Critics have compared the Lady Emily books to Elizabeth Peters and Georgette Heyer. I’d add in Deanna Raybourn and Carole Nelson Douglas (if anyone else has read Douglas’ Irene Adler books, you’ll know what I mean). At the same time, Tasha has also written the book version of Elizabeth:the Golden Age, and today, on History Hoydens, she’s tackled a topic near and dear to my heart: the immortal allure of Mr. Darcy.
… here’s a real Pink Carnation artifact: the Lost Cover of Pink I.
Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it? Having a lost anything imparts such a lovely air of antiquity and myth-making, like the lost city of Atlantis or the lost subway stations hidden among the tunnels beneath the city of New York.
And I’m not even making it up. Pink I really does have its own lost pictoral history, a cover that flourished for two brief months before being consigned to the scrap heap. Et voila:
Different, isn’t it? It tells its own little historical story. When the advance copies were being printed up, way back in 2003, chick lit was all the rage and every book cover boasted a trendy bag. By the time the advance copies had shipped, the fickle favor of style had shifted and chick lit, like an aging royal mistress, was no longer chic. To be honest, although I do like the bag of the girl on the original cover (and the lovely leather book), I was delighted when my publisher made a snap decision to switch to this cover:
What do you think?
I don’t have the cover for Pink V– I mean, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine– yet, but Patricia kindly passed along to me this picture of the cover of the large print version of Pink I to add to my cover collection.
I’ve always wondered why they chose such a different look from the mainstream version. Which of the two Pink I looks do you prefer?
