Book Log 36/2012 - Georgette Heyer: The Grand Sophy

[jacey]

I can see why a lot of people list this as their favourite Heyer Regency romance. Sophy Stanton-Lacy is a delightful character, full of mischief, self-confidence and an insight into character surprising for her tender years, whose main flaw is thinking - no, knowing - what's best for other people. While her father is in South America on a diplomatic mission he leaves her with her aunt and her family in London. Sophie immediately decides that the family needs her help. It seems she's arrived in the nick of time. Cecilia, her cousin, has fallen for an absent-minded but handsome poet and is on the point of rejecting a very good match with an entirely suitable man. Cousin Hubert has fallen into the clutches of an unscrupulous moneylender and Cousin Charles, supposedly the sensible one since Sophie's Uncle is a confirmed wastrel, has affianced himself to a humourless bluestocking whose entire raison d'etre seem to be to find fault with the whole family, set herself above them all in manners and morals and to make sure Charles knows about it.

Rushing in where angels fear to tread, Sophie soon has the house in an uproar. Bringing the younger children a pet monkey is only the start of it. She infuriates Charles by insisting on keeping an independent stable with a splendid riding horse and her own phaeton and pair of spirited bays (entirely too frisky for a woman to handle!). Not only that but she carries a gun and knows how to shoot it - which comes in very handy on a couple of occasions.

Naturally everything comes within a whisker of turning to complete chaos, but works out well in the end. Yes, it has all the issues of misogyny inherent in women being treated as if they had no brain at all, but it's set in 1816 and Sophie is one of the few feminists in Heyer's fluffy Regency world, or would be if feminism had been a Regency concept. Very enjoyable.

Comments

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Ask me tomorrow and my opinion may be completely different because I can see both points of view. I'll chew it over with my close friend M who is British/Jewish and see what he thinks of it. I'm pretty sure he's not a Heyer reader, but will be very familiar with Fagin and Shylock as an ex English teacher.

Incidentally does the literary treatment of Fagin and Shylock strike you as being similar to Heyer's moneylender or do you think Heyer did a particularly bad/lazy job on that particular character? Just curious.

I wonder if the big question is should we censor or re-edit classic works of literature to suit our more politically correct 21st century attitudes or should we just endeavour to set them in context for people coming fresh to them?

Green Knight had harsh things to say about racism in Enid Blyton's children's stories on that count, written in the 30s, 40s and 50s but still being published today in their original editions. I suppose I'm more uncomfortable with children reading that because they have no context for it. (Personally I would like to see Blyton censored on the grounds of literary merit or lack thereof which would kill two birds with one stone.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It's not an easy question to answer. Re Blyton, I owe her a huge debt--at age nine, I loved her Adventure books passionately, rereading them over and over. Their shortcomings were utterly invisible, though I cannot read them now at all.

Shylock is a complicated character. Fagin . . . well, Dickens did caricature. I supposed one could say Heyer did too. It's the smugness of her anti-Semitism that revolts me--if Goldhanger wasn't such a disgustingly one-dimensional stereotype--I dunno. I just find that chapter so poisonous and so unnecessary I enjoy the book more if I skip it altogether, and mentally add a line, "Sophie took her pistol to the moneylender, where she was forced to use it to recover the note-of-hand." And the story goes on without a whit lost, because we see how resourceful she is everywhere else.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're right. She is smug about Goldhanger.

Re Blyton, I had a brief flirtation with 'Famous Five' when I was about 8 or 9. I rwad as many as i clould get hold of and then very quickly went back to my pony books. My biggest influence from my childhood reading is Monica Edwards who mixed ponies with adventure and had set of thoroughly interesting character who I more or less grew up with. I still re-read them from time to time and am delighted to fing they don't diminish with (my) age.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Alas, those never made it over to here, or at least our small library annex!