Evelina again
Aug. 13th, 2025 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sartoriasI don't know how many times I've read this, but as my book group is meeting Saturday, I dug it back out of the box and have been rereading it. The influence on Jane Austen is clearer with each reread. Astonishing that it was considered so genteel at the time, with all the thoughtless animal cruelty as well as abuse of the characters set up as comic villains.
The hero and heroine are dull as ditchwater, of course; she is unswerving in her maidenly modesty (and beauty) and purity, and he remains at a distance, regarded by all as a cynosure, and ever ready to rescue her though they scarcely have an actual conversation. But there's too much delicacy to actually get to know one another as people; she has to know that he's a gentleman, and he has to know her virtue before the wedding bells can ring.
The fun is in the secondary characters in all their vulgarity, and in the minute descriptions of life in London in the 1770s.
I'm halfway through, maybe more to come.
The hero and heroine are dull as ditchwater, of course; she is unswerving in her maidenly modesty (and beauty) and purity, and he remains at a distance, regarded by all as a cynosure, and ever ready to rescue her though they scarcely have an actual conversation. But there's too much delicacy to actually get to know one another as people; she has to know that he's a gentleman, and he has to know her virtue before the wedding bells can ring.
The fun is in the secondary characters in all their vulgarity, and in the minute descriptions of life in London in the 1770s.
I'm halfway through, maybe more to come.
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Date: 2025-08-14 03:10 am (UTC)Maybe I took it too seriously when I read it (awhile ago)--I remember thinking the characters were mean, and not particularly funny. If I have another go sometime, I'll have to try adjusting my lens!
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Date: 2025-08-14 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-14 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-14 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-14 01:54 pm (UTC)Have you read The Female Quixote by chance? It was a major influence on Austen, especially on Northanger Abbey. It also suffers from a bland heroine, but at least when I read it a decade ago, I found it laugh out loud funny in parts.
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Date: 2025-08-14 04:38 pm (UTC)I have indeed read Charlotte Lennox--the second half of The Female Quixote is pretty turgid with preaching, but oh yes, that first half is a crackup!