The Sea without a Haven by D. K. Broster
Apr. 10th, 2023 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeIn her penultimate novel, D. K. Broster returns to her old favourite historical setting, approaches it from a new angle and has plenty of fun with it.
The Sea without a Haven (1941) opens in Toulon in December 1793. Charlotte d'Esparre, a young lady from a Royalist family, has sought refuge here in her aunt's house after the rest of her family died and/or were scattered by the chaos of the Revolution; but Toulon, about to fall to the Republican forces, is no longer safe. So the aunt arranges for Charlotte to marry a man, a plantation owner from Louisiana, who can convey her safely away by sea. Charlotte is not at all happy about this, but goes through with the marriage because she has no other options... and later that very day her husband is killed in a scuffle at the quayside while escaping from Toulon, and she is left alone on a ship in the British fleet which is rescuing people from the city. The ship brings Charlotte to Leghorn in Italy, where she tries to find some means of supporting herself, and from there she gets into various further adventures.
It is a refreshing change of focus from Broster's earlier books! This is the first time in the read-through that a female character has been firmly the single main character; I liked this very much in general and I liked Charlotte, who, understandably shaken by the hardships she goes through, finds reserves of toughness and resourcefulness. Really it's a female-perspective book generally; the whole thing, from the title downwards, is basically about the precarity and vulnerability of a woman's position in the historical society of the setting and when war forces her to become a refugee. (I imagine the topic of war and refugees was a relevant one when this book was written; and as for the hardships of being a self-supporting single woman, Broster must have experienced some of those herself). However, this only goes so far. Broster seems totally uninterested in introducing any complex, close f/f relationship to match the m/m ones of her best books, and two of Charlotte's most prominent relationships with other women consist largely of them being groundlessly jealous of Charlotte's fictitious romantic involvement with their love interests and absurdly obsessive and spiteful about it, which—I mean, women can be awful and indeed sexist to other women, a book pointing that out isn't anti-feminist, on the contrary, but I did feel it was a bit overly prominent. Besides that, there is some racism in the early chapters, though that side of things disappears later on.
In Leghorn Charlotte supports herself by becoming a governess, and this gives Broster a chance to introduce a child character who is a massive contrast to the cloyingly adorable children of some other books. In general I'm inclined to think the high point of her writing comes in the early-middle of her bibliography; but between this and her Mary Queen of Scots, this is one aspect in which she definitely improved over the whole course of her career.
Then there's Charlotte's love interest, Captain Nugent Carew of the British Navy, who baffled me by combining a surname I find particularly euphonious and a first name I find particularly unpleasant. (At least Charlotte's new married name will be a nice one?). Apart from that I couldn't summon up any especially strong feelings about him; he's a serious, capable officer who falls in love with Charlotte, is determined to save her from peril when that becomes relevant, and doesn't really get any noteworthy character development. Their getting-together at the end is a bit unsavoury, in the 'ooh, a Masterful man Taking Charge and deciding unilaterally that the heroine will marry him, isn't that the sexiest thing ever (???apparently?)' way. Actually I didn't find it as bad as it might have been—I think partly because I'd been warned and was not sure whether to expect even worse; partly by favourable comparison with the recent very annoying Heyer romance; partly because it is kind of understandable that Charlotte, after everything she's been through and all the self-reliance she's had to do, would take some comfort in a partner who 'takes charge' and sorts everything out for her; and partly because, to give what credit is due, Broster is careful to establish that Charlotte really does want to be with Captain Carew and is happy to choose him.
This is not a brilliantly ambitious book in general; the plot is fairly simple and the climax is contrived, not to say slightly silly. Not that it doesn't have anything serious about it, but in general I get the impression that Broster has left some of the complexity of her early and mid-career books behind and is just having fun messing about in a setting she loves. Aspects of it reminded me of Ships in the Bay!: it has the same light and somewhat annoying but basically happy romance, the same authorial attitude of fond indulgence towards the main characters, and the shape of the climax feels similar—a genuinely threatening but small-scale situation of conflict which, without failing to take it seriously, is treated kind of comically and resolved happily. I think Broster is good at combining that kind of arch humour in her tone and attitude with a real weight and seriousness where appropriate. And her prose is an utter delight to read; she constructs sentences with such brilliant precision and balance, and I am now as always in awe.
It's less closely based on real history than SitB! and other books—the island of Farfalletta is totally fictional, as far as I can tell—but, as always, Broster does get plenty of real historical detail in there where relevant, including an appearance by the current Captain Nelson, who's one of Carew's comrades during the British conquest of Corsica. And the landscape descriptions are as good as ever—here the maquis and luxuriant foliage of the Mediterranean and the sea in all its varied moods. Broster was born on the outskirts of Liverpool, and once wrote that her earliest memories were of ships and the sea; it's not so prominent in her early books, but those memories seem to have come back to her here, and she knows how to use them to excellent effect.
Also, did I miss something or do we just never find out what happened to M de Dieuzie at the end?
This book has a sequel, The Captain's Lady, and I am very much looking forward to reading about Charlotte's further adventures; but before I get there, another collection of horror stories intervenes...
The Sea without a Haven (1941) opens in Toulon in December 1793. Charlotte d'Esparre, a young lady from a Royalist family, has sought refuge here in her aunt's house after the rest of her family died and/or were scattered by the chaos of the Revolution; but Toulon, about to fall to the Republican forces, is no longer safe. So the aunt arranges for Charlotte to marry a man, a plantation owner from Louisiana, who can convey her safely away by sea. Charlotte is not at all happy about this, but goes through with the marriage because she has no other options... and later that very day her husband is killed in a scuffle at the quayside while escaping from Toulon, and she is left alone on a ship in the British fleet which is rescuing people from the city. The ship brings Charlotte to Leghorn in Italy, where she tries to find some means of supporting herself, and from there she gets into various further adventures.
It is a refreshing change of focus from Broster's earlier books! This is the first time in the read-through that a female character has been firmly the single main character; I liked this very much in general and I liked Charlotte, who, understandably shaken by the hardships she goes through, finds reserves of toughness and resourcefulness. Really it's a female-perspective book generally; the whole thing, from the title downwards, is basically about the precarity and vulnerability of a woman's position in the historical society of the setting and when war forces her to become a refugee. (I imagine the topic of war and refugees was a relevant one when this book was written; and as for the hardships of being a self-supporting single woman, Broster must have experienced some of those herself). However, this only goes so far. Broster seems totally uninterested in introducing any complex, close f/f relationship to match the m/m ones of her best books, and two of Charlotte's most prominent relationships with other women consist largely of them being groundlessly jealous of Charlotte's fictitious romantic involvement with their love interests and absurdly obsessive and spiteful about it, which—I mean, women can be awful and indeed sexist to other women, a book pointing that out isn't anti-feminist, on the contrary, but I did feel it was a bit overly prominent. Besides that, there is some racism in the early chapters, though that side of things disappears later on.
In Leghorn Charlotte supports herself by becoming a governess, and this gives Broster a chance to introduce a child character who is a massive contrast to the cloyingly adorable children of some other books. In general I'm inclined to think the high point of her writing comes in the early-middle of her bibliography; but between this and her Mary Queen of Scots, this is one aspect in which she definitely improved over the whole course of her career.
Then there's Charlotte's love interest, Captain Nugent Carew of the British Navy, who baffled me by combining a surname I find particularly euphonious and a first name I find particularly unpleasant. (At least Charlotte's new married name will be a nice one?). Apart from that I couldn't summon up any especially strong feelings about him; he's a serious, capable officer who falls in love with Charlotte, is determined to save her from peril when that becomes relevant, and doesn't really get any noteworthy character development. Their getting-together at the end is a bit unsavoury, in the 'ooh, a Masterful man Taking Charge and deciding unilaterally that the heroine will marry him, isn't that the sexiest thing ever (???apparently?)' way. Actually I didn't find it as bad as it might have been—I think partly because I'd been warned and was not sure whether to expect even worse; partly by favourable comparison with the recent very annoying Heyer romance; partly because it is kind of understandable that Charlotte, after everything she's been through and all the self-reliance she's had to do, would take some comfort in a partner who 'takes charge' and sorts everything out for her; and partly because, to give what credit is due, Broster is careful to establish that Charlotte really does want to be with Captain Carew and is happy to choose him.
This is not a brilliantly ambitious book in general; the plot is fairly simple and the climax is contrived, not to say slightly silly. Not that it doesn't have anything serious about it, but in general I get the impression that Broster has left some of the complexity of her early and mid-career books behind and is just having fun messing about in a setting she loves. Aspects of it reminded me of Ships in the Bay!: it has the same light and somewhat annoying but basically happy romance, the same authorial attitude of fond indulgence towards the main characters, and the shape of the climax feels similar—a genuinely threatening but small-scale situation of conflict which, without failing to take it seriously, is treated kind of comically and resolved happily. I think Broster is good at combining that kind of arch humour in her tone and attitude with a real weight and seriousness where appropriate. And her prose is an utter delight to read; she constructs sentences with such brilliant precision and balance, and I am now as always in awe.
It's less closely based on real history than SitB! and other books—the island of Farfalletta is totally fictional, as far as I can tell—but, as always, Broster does get plenty of real historical detail in there where relevant, including an appearance by the current Captain Nelson, who's one of Carew's comrades during the British conquest of Corsica. And the landscape descriptions are as good as ever—here the maquis and luxuriant foliage of the Mediterranean and the sea in all its varied moods. Broster was born on the outskirts of Liverpool, and once wrote that her earliest memories were of ships and the sea; it's not so prominent in her early books, but those memories seem to have come back to her here, and she knows how to use them to excellent effect.
Also, did I miss something or do we just never find out what happened to M de Dieuzie at the end?
This book has a sequel, The Captain's Lady, and I am very much looking forward to reading about Charlotte's further adventures; but before I get there, another collection of horror stories intervenes...
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2023 03:37 pm (UTC)I imagine the topic of war and refugees was a relevant one when this book was written; and as for the hardships of being a self-supporting single woman, Broster must have experienced some of those herself
I didn't think of that, but you're right. OTOH, her own life proves that women could support each other, but we don't see much of that in her books... Maybe she didn't want to put too much of herself in there.
Also, did I miss something or do we just never find out what happened to M de Dieuzie at the end?
...I'm sorry, I don't even remember who that name belongs to. : / The elderly royalist who broke his sword?
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2023 07:09 pm (UTC)OTOH, her own life proves that women could support each other, but we don't see much of that in her books... Maybe she didn't want to put too much of herself in there.
That's very true, and yes, possibly! And possibly she felt (as I sometimes do trying to write femslash) that the roles available to women in her favoured historical settings just didn't allow for the kinds of stories and relationship dynamics she liked best.
...I'm sorry, I don't even remember who that name belongs to. : / The elderly royalist who broke his sword?
Yes, the Governor of Farfalletta—he disappears in a huff after the sword-breaking and we never see him again.
no subject
Date: Apr. 11th, 2023 07:20 pm (UTC)But I do think there are plenty of options for f/f in historical fiction! One could even get a similar dynamic that Charlotte/Nugent (yes, weird name) have, if one wanted, by having Charlotte become a companion to some imperious spinster woman. : )
What are the things you struggle most with in historical f/f?
no subject
Date: Apr. 12th, 2023 06:09 pm (UTC)That's a good idea—I would enjoy a story about Charlotte or a similar character and the imperious spinster to whom she becomes companion :D But a lot of the more specific types of dynamics I like are less easy for female characters, especially when trying to find them in old books rather than create them anew—'finding pairings that appeal, in the sort of canons I otherwise like' is one of the main things I struggle with in femslash (my problem for having tastes that are both too old-fashioned and too modern for themselves, I suppose). Then female characters are much more constrained, both economically and culturally within their historical settings and literarily within the stories that get told, and that's frustrating—I don't think you could have an f/f Ewen/Keith, or Aymar/Laurent, for instance, at least not without changing the dynamics fairly massively. I can enjoy stories about how sexism affects characters' lives but it's not what I want in iddy shipfic, and I suppose it's freeing how male characters just get to be people much more. Then almost all major female characters in old books have het love interests, which I prefer to avoid when I can, and are less likely to have substantial characterisation outside of those relationships. One can get around that to an extent by writing about very unconventional women—like Jill, or Alithea and Arabella!—but then you get back into literary conventions and requirements and the fact that most historical authors didn't... Do you find any of those things?
no subject
Date: Apr. 12th, 2023 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Apr. 12th, 2023 06:18 pm (UTC)