A little tea, a little chat

Second thought:

Before my family renounced Roman Catholicism when I was ten, we were devout Catholics and I spend more than my fair share of time in church. I loved bits of it. Hymns. Sermons when the priest was a good speaker. But mostly I played with the alter boys in my head. Some of them were good knights, some bad; they all wanted me, I always got into trouble with a bad knight, only to be saved. Like it or not, that seems to be how girls’ heads work, so it really isn’t surprising that people who work out how to write about this have a grateful audience.

I am a girl. So, while other types of love are part of me, as befits a grownup, romantic love is as important to me now as it was when I was seven. It is true I’ve read almost no specifically romantic books, perhaps but for a small period in my childhood, but when I get to the parts of any books, whether it be The Dispossessed or Margrete and Jonas, or Tess, which are about the heart, my heart takes over.

I cannot say this happened at all during the course of reading Look at My Heart. I’m sick and that’s made me irritable, so I am writing in an unfair frame of mind. But all the same, I’m looking back at the story I told elsewhere (see link in this review) of when Bobby and I were so impressed with these and wondering why I feel quite different right now. Okay.

(1) This is Hope’s first venture. In general with hindsight we do make allowances for this, do we not? I wonder what her later ones are like.

(2) The ones I read were part of a package sent by Mills and Boon to prospective writers. Now that I’ve sat down tonight to think about that, it is obvious that they would be sending highlights, wouldn’t they? The ones they want you to live up to. The ones they want to put you off so that you only persevere if you really have the will and talent, neither of which Bobby or I had.

Having said that, the tricks of the story line are quite clever and the main character, Carol, is a strong-willed fighter who knows what she wants and never gives in despite very trying circumstances.

Manny said in his review:

The surface plot is absurd and revoltingly sexist. Even though the guy is tall, dark and devilishly handsome, he shouldn't have locked Carol up in a tower against her will and then forced her to marry him. She shouldn't have found that, despite this treatment, she was unable to prevent herself falling in love with him. And they shouldn't have been able to sort out all their differences at the end inside ten minutes, so that they then lived happily ever after.

I don't see the plot as notably absurd - literature does often rely on such plots - and I don’t see what is sexist about it. I can see that this is a difficult thing for boys to talk about since there is a politically correct line they have to hold or they will be cast into the mud with stones flung at them.

The hero thought he had good reasons for locking Carol up and then ‘marrying’ her. The hero thought he’d been tricked already in to marrying her for the expected reason that she was going to screw him for money, property etc. And she wouldn’t be the first girl to do that to a boy, would she? Though I imagine I’m not allowed to point that out without being open to attack as a sexist. She’d already fallen in love with him from day one, it doesn't come upon her during her mistreatment; and her love is true, so the fact that he behaves in ways he shouldn’t, doesn’t make her change her mind. She isn’t subject to mood-swings where she loves him one moment and not the next. In my opinion that is true love, there’s nothing the least sexist about it. No more than the fact he loves her throughout the debacle even though he thinks she has done the most terrible thing to him. That isn’t sexist either.

And, of course, they have both loved each other all along, so why shouldn’t they sort out their differences just like that!? It must have been a great relieft not to have to keep on pretending. Pretending you don’t love somebody is no fun at all.



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First thought:

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, with bells on – no, FUCK with a border of little dicks with bells on jiggling and jingling them about as dicks might. They can be quite irritating, can’t they, dicks? Lovely, but.

I’m only on p. 32 and I’m wondering how could I have called this so wrong. (See http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/129471096)

I loved p. 1. It’s a Dickens of a page one, and so I guess like her great predecessor, largely she’s done the thing she had to do right. Then they are hooked.

Not only that, but I learned something on page 1. If you want to meet the fabulous man of your dreams, you have to go caving. Well, I didn’t know that. How many times have I had this conversation here:

Somebody: ‘Wanna go caving?’
Me: ‘Only if the hotel it’s in is at least 4*’
Somebody: ‘Hello-oo. It’s a hole under the ground?’
Me: ‘You are asking me if I want to climb in a hole under the ground.’
Somebody: ‘Yeesss.’ Possibly slightly testily.
Me: ‘Why the fuck would I want to do that?’
Somebody: ‘Because it’s like fun?’

Not once, NOT ONCE did anybody say because I will meet the great love of my life. I’m sorry, if you are still there, waiting, reading this on your kindle or your iphone or something. Next time I’ll go. Please don’t give up on me.

But to be perfectly truthful, since p. 1 things have gone steadily downhill, which given Carol had to climb quite high up a mountain to get to this particular cave, is really a bit dispiriting.

Manny's already rubbing his hands, sure there's no way out for me. Frankly I feel rather like I'm in a Mills & Boon and have to escape without the help of a hero. Shit. Somebody write a happy ending in please before I come back.

More later.