did you know that the main characters of The Wounded Name are on opposite sides of the Napoleonic Wars—we're not informed whether Aymar or Laurent is the Bonapartist, sadly
Ahahaha WOW that is a big thing to get wrong! Trying to figure out how the plot would work... I think it's easier to make Laurent the Bonapartist, since he has way less military backstory (we can't get rid of Aymar being shot by his own men!), so maybe... Laurent is a Bonapartist who has been imprisoned for insubordination or something... OR NO, WAIT, Laurent is a Bonapartist who is PRETENDING to be a Royalist captive, put in Aymar's cell to look after him in hopes of making him talk to this supposedly sympathetic audience! Only Laurent ruins it all by falling for the mark.
Actually I think that could also be a delightful book (although probably not a Broster book), but not even in the ballpark of the actual book as written!
I've found that books that are specifically focused on women's writing are sometimes weirdly antagonistic to women's writing - I'm thinking particularly of Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig's You’re a Brick, Angela!: A New Look at Girls’ Fiction, from 1839-1975, which I read lo these many years ago for my thesis project, and I still remember how much the authors seemed to hate almost every book they covered. So it doesn't surprise me that someone decided that Flight of the Heron is all about gentlemanly values and misogyny, although like you I think that interpretation is a real reach.
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Ahahaha WOW that is a big thing to get wrong! Trying to figure out how the plot would work... I think it's easier to make Laurent the Bonapartist, since he has way less military backstory (we can't get rid of Aymar being shot by his own men!), so maybe... Laurent is a Bonapartist who has been imprisoned for insubordination or something... OR NO, WAIT, Laurent is a Bonapartist who is PRETENDING to be a Royalist captive, put in Aymar's cell to look after him in hopes of making him talk to this supposedly sympathetic audience! Only Laurent ruins it all by falling for the mark.
Actually I think that could also be a delightful book (although probably not a Broster book), but not even in the ballpark of the actual book as written!
I've found that books that are specifically focused on women's writing are sometimes weirdly antagonistic to women's writing - I'm thinking particularly of Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig's You’re a Brick, Angela!: A New Look at Girls’ Fiction, from 1839-1975, which I read lo these many years ago for my thesis project, and I still remember how much the authors seemed to hate almost every book they covered. So it doesn't surprise me that someone decided that Flight of the Heron is all about gentlemanly values and misogyny, although like you I think that interpretation is a real reach.