"The Yellow Poppy", D.K. Broster
13 April 2024 03:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeThis book is unusual in two ways: first of all, unlike most of Broster's historical romances the plot *does* actually revolve around a 'romance'. Aymar and Avoye's relationship in "The Wounded Name" is an essential part of Aymar's motivation both to make his fatal decision and to withold any account of it for so long, but the actual plot in that case concerns the damage to his reputation -- his 'wounded name' -- while in "Chantemerle", for example, the book is far more concerned with the rift created between the two cousins who both love the same woman, rather than with Lucienne's unhappiness as a result, and the romance in "Mr. Rowl", such as it is, consists of Juliana going to extraordinary lengths for the benefit of the protagonist for the sake of what she sees as a moral obligation, then suddenly realising that she is in love with him after all after denying it throughout the entire book... which I always felt to be rather undermining her motives! But in "The Yellow Poppy" questions of honour, war and loyalty are ultimately present as a background to the relationship between husband and wife rather than the reverse.
That, of course, is the other highly unusual element -- that the ardent affair in question (barely even a love-triangle, since it consists of two people who are passionately in love with one another and a third who basically has no chance from the start) is depicted as taking place between characters who, very unusually for the era and genre, are all well over forty years old. Valentine, who continues to attract suitors, calls herself an old woman in response to both Georges Camain and the Comte de Brencourt, and protests that she could be a grandmother, and she is probably the youngest of the three. De Brencourt is described by the end of the book as worn and ill, and 'not a young man'; Gaston de Trélan gets a good deal greyer through stress in the course of the story, and is described as having regained his youth in the final scene by appearing 'only' forty-five :-O Not quite what one would expect in the average historical romance, where the heroine is not generally described as having 'faded' hair...
De Brencourt fell in love with her ten years earlier; she has been married to Gaston for twenty-three, and for the last seven, believing that he has lost her, he has finally fallen in love with his wife in return. Three-quarters of the book (it doesn't feel like that in retrospect, but in fact all the following events only occupy a hundred pages or so) is taken up by the plot developments that gradually bring them back together, as both discover that the other is still alive. De Brencourt, who becomes aware of their respective identities rather earlier than anybody else, ends up desperately trying to prevent the reunion and nearly destroying himself in the process without coming near to winning Valentine's affections, still steadfastly set on the husband from whom she has been estranged for years. It's an obsessive love that can either save or damn him; in the end it drives him to act unselfishly on her behalf and without any hope of reciprocation, and he is rewarded not with her love but with the trust he had forfeited.
There is a sub-plot romance between two characters in their twenties representing the next generation, but it is entirely in the background and very lightly sketched in. Roland falls in love with the sister of his best friend who lives nearby, she is equally susceptible to him, and their respective guardians are all in favour of the match in order to join the two estates, so the affair gives rise to not the slightest dramatic tension... apart from the increasing probability that the young bridegroom and everyone else will get killed in a losing war :-(
Broster has chosen to set the book during a relatively obscure period of French history, three years after the devastation of the Vendée and during the downfall of the Directory and the eventual takeover by Napoleon Bonaparte -- the latter being the only event that tends to get covered by popular histories of this era! The Quiberon disaster is past history for the Royalist characters, but what they don't know (and the reader is highly unlikely to know either) is that the uprising on which they have pinned so many hopes and so much organisation is *not* the eventual Royalist restoration witnessed by the protagonists of "The Wounded Name", but a minor attempt that will rapidly fizzle out once launched, leaving Gaston de Trélan in a hopelessly exposed position and forcing him to a humiliating surrender. Unfortunately he has been defiant enough and successful enough to seriously frighten the authorities, who are now determined to make an example of him by hook or by crook...
The author's note mentions that Gaston's case is based on the real-life fate of Louis de Frotté during this rebellion, which was presumably the reason behind picking this specific setting. But it provides the set-up for the climax of the book, where Valentine's desperate desire to save her husband at all costs comes into conflict with her previous longing for him to make worthy use of the talents he had dissipated in his youth; with hindsight, the scene is written a little too obviously with the author's foreknowledge that the anticipated escape attempt will in fact fail to happen, because on the face of it the characters have no reason to regard this as such a final farewell, but Broster caps off the plot by (as in "The Flight of the Heron") shockingly killing off a central protagonist -- and in this case, one with a close-knit family and every reason to live.
Ultimately Gaston goes consenting, in the belief that his very public death on a trumped-up pretext will prove a more powerful weapon against the new régime than a return to exile in England could ever be (and within the context of the novel we have to take it on trust that this will be so, although since Napoleon proceded to survive several assassination attempts and reign for another dozen years, the consequences of any political outcry cannot have been as great as the author is hoping to present). But Valentine, left behind after an all too brief period of late-found happiness, has to reconcile the devastation of her very real loss with her husband's moral victory thereby. She ends the story on an elevated note: "all that she had longed for him to show himself lay here between the candles [...] and with it their love, safe for ever". But the passage that spoke to me, I'm afraid, was the prior moment of stark reality when she realises all at once that for all the grand sentiments of acceptance being tossed around, *he is dead* and cannot hear or answer or ever hold her again...
From D.K. Broster's works I absorbed, at an impressionable age prior to puberty, the subconscious messages that love is given once and forever, that it is faithful even if unconsummated, and whether or not it is returned; that honour lies in constancy even without hope, that self-sacrifice is ennobling, that loyalty is its own reward. This did not, as it turned out, equip me to cope particularly well in the modern world :-( But I still prefer stories with happy endings from a reader's point of view. This one, however, I have reread often enough and in enough detail to realise that the tragedy is sort of the point -- the yellow poppy blooms late and ephemeral.
Apparently a West End stage adaptation was produced in 1922, which is an interesting concept; the action of the story does in fact largely divide into a series of relatively static dialogue scenes, each in a single location, so one can visualise it being done, although it would have to be streamlined a bit (I can see that the third member of 'les jeunes', Lucien, is missing from the cast list, as is Camain's mistress Rose Dufour, who appears in a couple of key scenes in the book!)
That, of course, is the other highly unusual element -- that the ardent affair in question (barely even a love-triangle, since it consists of two people who are passionately in love with one another and a third who basically has no chance from the start) is depicted as taking place between characters who, very unusually for the era and genre, are all well over forty years old. Valentine, who continues to attract suitors, calls herself an old woman in response to both Georges Camain and the Comte de Brencourt, and protests that she could be a grandmother, and she is probably the youngest of the three. De Brencourt is described by the end of the book as worn and ill, and 'not a young man'; Gaston de Trélan gets a good deal greyer through stress in the course of the story, and is described as having regained his youth in the final scene by appearing 'only' forty-five :-O Not quite what one would expect in the average historical romance, where the heroine is not generally described as having 'faded' hair...
De Brencourt fell in love with her ten years earlier; she has been married to Gaston for twenty-three, and for the last seven, believing that he has lost her, he has finally fallen in love with his wife in return. Three-quarters of the book (it doesn't feel like that in retrospect, but in fact all the following events only occupy a hundred pages or so) is taken up by the plot developments that gradually bring them back together, as both discover that the other is still alive. De Brencourt, who becomes aware of their respective identities rather earlier than anybody else, ends up desperately trying to prevent the reunion and nearly destroying himself in the process without coming near to winning Valentine's affections, still steadfastly set on the husband from whom she has been estranged for years. It's an obsessive love that can either save or damn him; in the end it drives him to act unselfishly on her behalf and without any hope of reciprocation, and he is rewarded not with her love but with the trust he had forfeited.
There is a sub-plot romance between two characters in their twenties representing the next generation, but it is entirely in the background and very lightly sketched in. Roland falls in love with the sister of his best friend who lives nearby, she is equally susceptible to him, and their respective guardians are all in favour of the match in order to join the two estates, so the affair gives rise to not the slightest dramatic tension... apart from the increasing probability that the young bridegroom and everyone else will get killed in a losing war :-(
Broster has chosen to set the book during a relatively obscure period of French history, three years after the devastation of the Vendée and during the downfall of the Directory and the eventual takeover by Napoleon Bonaparte -- the latter being the only event that tends to get covered by popular histories of this era! The Quiberon disaster is past history for the Royalist characters, but what they don't know (and the reader is highly unlikely to know either) is that the uprising on which they have pinned so many hopes and so much organisation is *not* the eventual Royalist restoration witnessed by the protagonists of "The Wounded Name", but a minor attempt that will rapidly fizzle out once launched, leaving Gaston de Trélan in a hopelessly exposed position and forcing him to a humiliating surrender. Unfortunately he has been defiant enough and successful enough to seriously frighten the authorities, who are now determined to make an example of him by hook or by crook...
The author's note mentions that Gaston's case is based on the real-life fate of Louis de Frotté during this rebellion, which was presumably the reason behind picking this specific setting. But it provides the set-up for the climax of the book, where Valentine's desperate desire to save her husband at all costs comes into conflict with her previous longing for him to make worthy use of the talents he had dissipated in his youth; with hindsight, the scene is written a little too obviously with the author's foreknowledge that the anticipated escape attempt will in fact fail to happen, because on the face of it the characters have no reason to regard this as such a final farewell, but Broster caps off the plot by (as in "The Flight of the Heron") shockingly killing off a central protagonist -- and in this case, one with a close-knit family and every reason to live.
Ultimately Gaston goes consenting, in the belief that his very public death on a trumped-up pretext will prove a more powerful weapon against the new régime than a return to exile in England could ever be (and within the context of the novel we have to take it on trust that this will be so, although since Napoleon proceded to survive several assassination attempts and reign for another dozen years, the consequences of any political outcry cannot have been as great as the author is hoping to present). But Valentine, left behind after an all too brief period of late-found happiness, has to reconcile the devastation of her very real loss with her husband's moral victory thereby. She ends the story on an elevated note: "all that she had longed for him to show himself lay here between the candles [...] and with it their love, safe for ever". But the passage that spoke to me, I'm afraid, was the prior moment of stark reality when she realises all at once that for all the grand sentiments of acceptance being tossed around, *he is dead* and cannot hear or answer or ever hold her again...
From D.K. Broster's works I absorbed, at an impressionable age prior to puberty, the subconscious messages that love is given once and forever, that it is faithful even if unconsummated, and whether or not it is returned; that honour lies in constancy even without hope, that self-sacrifice is ennobling, that loyalty is its own reward. This did not, as it turned out, equip me to cope particularly well in the modern world :-( But I still prefer stories with happy endings from a reader's point of view. This one, however, I have reread often enough and in enough detail to realise that the tragedy is sort of the point -- the yellow poppy blooms late and ephemeral.
Apparently a West End stage adaptation was produced in 1922, which is an interesting concept; the action of the story does in fact largely divide into a series of relatively static dialogue scenes, each in a single location, so one can visualise it being done, although it would have to be streamlined a bit (I can see that the third member of 'les jeunes', Lucien, is missing from the cast list, as is Camain's mistress Rose Dufour, who appears in a couple of key scenes in the book!)