Igenlode Wordsmith

I was surprised to discover a copy of an Elizabeth Goudge book I'd never even heard of, let alone read. But I did have a suspicion that as with "The Castle on the Hill" there might be a good reason for that, and unfortunately I was right.

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The first moment at which the book actually rang true to me wasn't until halfway through the whole thing, at the very end of Book 1, when it takes a sudden turn into horror: the agony of betrayal and the dreadful idea of possession and the past coming back to haunt you carry an actual emotional punch in the way that none of the preceding romanticised material does. And then Book 2 is like suddenly coming out of a fog; everything clicks into place as soon as we get into the 1745 story, which one suspects is the aspect the author really wanted to write in the first place. ( Read more... )

It occurred to me to wonder belatedly what Christian name Gaston de Trélan is using under his pseudonym of 'the Marquis de Kersaint'. ( Much speculation )

The other thing I wonder is just how fatal, with hindsight, his resuming his true identity proved to be (foreshadowing: "it might some day mean Gaston's life if the Directory knew who he really was"). It seems to have been a pretty open secret after Valentine's arrival, since she is known to everyone as the Duchesse de Trélan and as the commander's wife, but one of the subsequent grounds for disregarding the safe-conduct is that "that man who organised Finistère, de Kersaint" has turned out to be "a ci-devant of the ci-devants; no less than the Duc de Trélan, in fact. Brune let that out too; Fouché, it seems, discovered it. So he would be worth capturing". ( Read more... )

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I uploaded "The Remorse of Others" to AO3 on the 3rd of May, where it has reached a new low of zero page hits (even lower than my snippets of ancient original work, or my opera-fic, or the Gigi story where there was no pre-existing fandom). I suppose that makes a sort of sense in that an original work might conceivably be of stand-alone interest, whereas work in an unknown fandom can affect only those who already care about the characters, but to be fair it probably says more about my summary being completely opaque to anyone who doesn't know the original novel... ( Read more... )

( A possible new fan on FFnet )

This book is unusual in two ways: first of all, unlike most of Broster's historical romances the plot *does* actually revolve around a 'romance'. ( Wounded Name, Chantemerle, Mr Rowl ) 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. ( Read more... ) 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.( Read more... )

And... finished. Well, that's certainly three thousand words I wouldn't have written otherwise ;-)

(And a canon I almost certainly wouldn't have written fan-fiction for at all -- I can't even remember why I started, except that I happened to have mentioned that novel a few days before in some context, probably because it's one of the very few of Broster's works that happens to be available online, and therefore I had the book off the shelves and hanging around on the first of November. Though I *have* always had a fellow-feeling for de Brencourt, along with various other deeply flawed anti-heroes...)

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Summary post of all the surviving material on my long-pending "Double Agents de Chagny" WW2 AU story, prompted by betweensunandmoon:

(extracts from an email conversation - with text emoticons :-p)

17 Sep 2013
I am seriously tempted by Pika-la-cynique's throwaway suggestion of a Paris-based Second World War version "featuring the Double Agents de Chagny playing collaborateurs and hosting champagne parties for the Nazi top brass, while secretly in touch with the Phantom, explosives expert and leader of the underground sabotage movement, reluctant allies for La Cause..."

Well, 'tempted' isn't the word. The possibilities are there all right, but I simply don't know enough about the setting (and more importantly [eyes] its mythology: not what *really* happened, but the heroic tropes) to write it. I can't use a supply of gangster/pirate movie references, swashbuckler conventions, background stage experience, basic social mores or re-reading of the source material (because, being AU, there *isn't* any) to provide standard plot themes for Occupied France, and don't know enough about daily life under those conditions to sketch in the background. But tantalisingly, I know just enough to have vague ideas of the potential ("Scarlet Pimpernel" meets "Colditz")... and to realise that, given the possibly explosive effects of fiddling with a sore point in someone else's history, it would need an awful lot of research! ( first thoughts )

( Research on Occupation-era Paris )

( initial suggestions for the story )

( Raoul's backstory )

( Christine and the Phantom in cabaret )

( Philippe's death )

7 Jan 2019
The other bit I remember that doesn't seem to be mentioned here anywhere is that (as hinted above) it was actually a shot-down English airman being smuggled in the bed of the lorry, they take him back to the flat for the night, he gets Christine's luxurious marital bedroom, and Christine and Raoul end up in Raoul's single bed in the dressing-room together :-p

I have to admit that I was very sceptical about Andrew Lloyd Webber's announced plans for a new "Phantom of the Opera" musical when I first heard about it, and was mildly disappointed but not at all surprised when the show, after eventually struggling to the stage, garnered poor reviews and failed to become a hit. But I was curious enough about it to pick up a discarded "Daily Mail" cover CD featuring songs from both "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Love Never Dies": and to my delight I found that the 'new' songs were actually extremely good. The score is very recognisably Lloyd Webber without yielding to the temptation to descend into pastiche: this is new music, not a re-hash of past success, yet for the first time in a dozen years or more it's melody worth listening to -- tunes you catch yourself humming out of context.

I soon found myself actively considering looking for a full recording rather than the half-dozen highlights included on the disc, and all the criticisms (numbers sounded like Tin Pan Alley showtunes rather than doom-laden European opera, dialogue was sung-though rather than spoken, unacceptably tragic ending, too much Raoul and Phantom and not enough Christine) seemed perfectly acceptable and possily even selling-points from my point of view. Unfortunately, then I came across the plot.

From the songs I'd heard I assumed I'd already gathered the gist of it (it later turned out that I'd massively misattributed the singers in one of them...) I'd been somewhat shocked, but the developments weren't such that I couldn't logically swallow. What I then discovered via the Internet and couldn't take was the plot's blithe assumption, supposed to be shared by the audience, that Christine Daaé had apparently have been pining after the Phantom from the first, and that she is constrained only by convention from taking her child and going off with her true soulmate.

( So why am I not on the side of the Phantom? )