The Wounded Name by D. K. Broster
Jul. 13th, 2020 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeOh, boy.
The Wounded Name (1922), D. K. Broster's fifth novel and third solo novel, continues the theme of post-Revolutionary French history begun in the earlier books—we've now made it to the Restoration and the Hundred Days—and also continues some other very distinctive common themes of her writing. Some of these are good.
So, it's 1815. Napoleon has been vanquished and a Bourbon is back on the throne, but, as they used to say on Horrible Histories, not for long. Laurent de Courtomer, a young Frenchman who grew up in England following his family's emigration and has just returned to his ancestral home, goes off to join the forces fighting in the Vendée against Napoleon's comeback. He's captured by the Imperialists and locked up in an appropriated château, where he meets a fellow-prisoner in a far less fortunate state than he—a Breton leader named Aymar de la Rocheterie, alias L'Oiseleur (the Fowler—a reference to a local legend which he's supposedly recapitulating), whom Laurent met in England the year before and immediately fell head over heels for. Laurent happily takes on the duty of tenderly nursing Aymar back to health, but as he does so, he becomes aware that a terrible secret lies behind Aymar's injuries and captivity—everyone is saying he did something horrifyingly dishonourable, something Laurent is sure he would never do. In between a frankly silly amount of indulgent hurt/comfort and fraught questions of honour, all is revealed...
(...also, like, the battle of Waterloo happens, somewhere, and Napoleon is defeated again, I guess? I don't know, it isn't really important when we've got all this homoerotic hurt/comfort and honour-related drama to get through. Truly, D. K. Broster is the anti-Victor Hugo.)
The plot is in three rough sections (although, oddly, this book isn't divided into Parts the way most of Broster's books are—instead it has a smaller number of much longer chapters). The first is the ridiculous hurt/comfort-slashy-honour bit, in which Laurent and Aymar go through various trials and adventures while imprisoned by and escaping from the Imperialists; it ends with Aymar finally revealing what the horrible dishonourable thing everyone keeps saying he's done was, and why he can't deny having done it. Then there's a middle section in which, Aymar being partly recovered and Waterloo making it easier for Royalists to move around in the open, he goes home and some het romance happens, but the vital question of his 'wounded name' is not resolved. Finally, Aymar sets out to restore his reputation and prove that he acted honourably after all, stalwartly defended by Laurent, and we get some great tense courtroom scenes and miraculous plot twists. In some ways the structure felt a bit disjointed, and the POV is very uneven, with the entire first part from Laurent's perspective and Aymar suddenly becoming a POV character later on.
...So, this is a really slashy book. It's a lot more than your typical 'this historical male friendship reads as kind of romantic to a modern audience'. Laurent's feelings for Aymar in the early part of the book are all but textually romantic—from their first meeting Laurent is constantly thinking about how handsome he is, treasuring every time Aymar smiles at him or honours him with a greater confidence than he gives other people, and later on, the way the narrative describes their growing closeness during the hurt/comfort section really doesn't read like the friendship Broster keeps insisting it is. (Is this what they did in the 1920s instead of 'gal pals'???) She even does the 'one character in a chair, the other sitting on the floor with their head against the first character's knee' thing she likes so much with her textual het romances! I didn't strongly ship it the way I do Ewen/Keith (IMO it isn't as interesting a relationship in itself), but it's impossible not to see it that way. To the point that it never rising above subtext felt almost dishonest—like, the relationship obviously ought to go that way, and it's so obvious that it not doing so is frankly unconvincing and unsatisfying.
I really wonder if Broster knew what she was doing here. So far, my opinion has been that her m/m subtext in general is probably not deliberate—largely because of the way she writes het romance like someone who enjoys it for its own sake and genuinely thinks it's the right thing for the characters—but... the thing is, she does seem to be aware on some level that those m/m relationships are not really compatible with her canon romances. (If one was being very uncharitable, one could read the ending of FotH as a tacit admission of that... but I digress). There's a decent argument to be made that it's not a coincidence how, both here and in FotH, the stronger and more obvious feelings and the het love interest are on opposite sides of the relationship in question. Laurent is explicitly jealous of Avoye, the love interest, and it's pretty clear that he'd much rather have Aymar to himself; his attitude to their relationship reads like a sort of wistful resignation to an inevitable loss. And herein is the downfall of the whole thing, for me. One the one side, we've got all that lovingly-detailed relationship development, incisively-portrayed romantic feelings, growing trust and a real sense that these two characters are each other's people, whatever the exact nature of that relationship; on the other side, we've got what amounts to 'he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?'. And the second one wins—it has to be the most important relationship in Aymar's life, no matter how insubstantial and undeserving, because that's how it works. The boy gets the girl, and they get a happily-ever-after. It's not fair and it does the story a great disservice and I hate it.
(I feel more or less the same way about Ewen/Alison, with the added 'it gets in the way of my OTP so it's bad'. I really wish Broster would write stuff like La Vireville/Raymonde or Valentine/Gaston on the one hand, and leave her Aymar/Laurent-type relationships alone on the other! They're both good if you do it that way!)
This book is by far the most similar to Flight of the Heron of any of Broster's other books so far; it kind of reads like Broster was testing out the ideas that she'd later develop to their full potential in FotH. The first part is basically an extended version of the 'Ewen gives away Lochiel's hiding-place by sleep-talking, and Keith comforts him while he's injured and a prisoner' section from FotH (I was almost afraid that the big reveal was going to be that Aymar gave away the information about his plans by talking in his sleep—there is in fact some sleep-talking involved elsewhere in the plot—but happily it's a bit more involved and ingenious than that!). There's the same emphasis on folkloric fate, although less tightly bound up with the plot and less interestingly written. And Aymar is... not quite the same character as Ewen, but they certainly have an awful lot in common. (Laurent is nothing like Keith, however—he's a much less well-developed character). And, while Broster's love of historical detail is certainly here, the historical setting isn't nearly as detailed or as cleverly woven together with the plot and characters as it is in FotH.
What else is there to say about this book? There are some good side characters—M. Perrelet, the irritable but indulgently good-hearted doctor who cares for Aymar during his captivity and comes to like and admire both him and Laurent (also in FotH links, the way Archibald Cameron is written in that book is much the same character type) is a fave. And Colonel Richard, the Imperialist officer to whom Aymar supposedly betrayed his own side, somewhat surprisingly turns out to be a great 'honourable enemy' character. The trial scenes towards the end of the book are properly gripping, even if the big reveal about a certain character's real identity is a little contrived.
On the whole, I didn't really enjoy this one, partly because I couldn't get over that horrible falsehood about the central relationships and partly because of how much it reads like a less well-executed beta version of my great love Flight of the Heron. But I think this is an unfair opinion—it's really a pretty good book, and I can recommend it for anyone who wants to see the best, even if amongst other things, of D. K. Broster's writing.
...Anyway, now I'm going to go and write another few hundred words of Ewen/Keith fic!
The Wounded Name (1922), D. K. Broster's fifth novel and third solo novel, continues the theme of post-Revolutionary French history begun in the earlier books—we've now made it to the Restoration and the Hundred Days—and also continues some other very distinctive common themes of her writing. Some of these are good.
So, it's 1815. Napoleon has been vanquished and a Bourbon is back on the throne, but, as they used to say on Horrible Histories, not for long. Laurent de Courtomer, a young Frenchman who grew up in England following his family's emigration and has just returned to his ancestral home, goes off to join the forces fighting in the Vendée against Napoleon's comeback. He's captured by the Imperialists and locked up in an appropriated château, where he meets a fellow-prisoner in a far less fortunate state than he—a Breton leader named Aymar de la Rocheterie, alias L'Oiseleur (the Fowler—a reference to a local legend which he's supposedly recapitulating), whom Laurent met in England the year before and immediately fell head over heels for. Laurent happily takes on the duty of tenderly nursing Aymar back to health, but as he does so, he becomes aware that a terrible secret lies behind Aymar's injuries and captivity—everyone is saying he did something horrifyingly dishonourable, something Laurent is sure he would never do. In between a frankly silly amount of indulgent hurt/comfort and fraught questions of honour, all is revealed...
(...also, like, the battle of Waterloo happens, somewhere, and Napoleon is defeated again, I guess? I don't know, it isn't really important when we've got all this homoerotic hurt/comfort and honour-related drama to get through. Truly, D. K. Broster is the anti-Victor Hugo.)
The plot is in three rough sections (although, oddly, this book isn't divided into Parts the way most of Broster's books are—instead it has a smaller number of much longer chapters). The first is the ridiculous hurt/comfort-slashy-honour bit, in which Laurent and Aymar go through various trials and adventures while imprisoned by and escaping from the Imperialists; it ends with Aymar finally revealing what the horrible dishonourable thing everyone keeps saying he's done was, and why he can't deny having done it. Then there's a middle section in which, Aymar being partly recovered and Waterloo making it easier for Royalists to move around in the open, he goes home and some het romance happens, but the vital question of his 'wounded name' is not resolved. Finally, Aymar sets out to restore his reputation and prove that he acted honourably after all, stalwartly defended by Laurent, and we get some great tense courtroom scenes and miraculous plot twists. In some ways the structure felt a bit disjointed, and the POV is very uneven, with the entire first part from Laurent's perspective and Aymar suddenly becoming a POV character later on.
...So, this is a really slashy book. It's a lot more than your typical 'this historical male friendship reads as kind of romantic to a modern audience'. Laurent's feelings for Aymar in the early part of the book are all but textually romantic—from their first meeting Laurent is constantly thinking about how handsome he is, treasuring every time Aymar smiles at him or honours him with a greater confidence than he gives other people, and later on, the way the narrative describes their growing closeness during the hurt/comfort section really doesn't read like the friendship Broster keeps insisting it is. (Is this what they did in the 1920s instead of 'gal pals'???) She even does the 'one character in a chair, the other sitting on the floor with their head against the first character's knee' thing she likes so much with her textual het romances! I didn't strongly ship it the way I do Ewen/Keith (IMO it isn't as interesting a relationship in itself), but it's impossible not to see it that way. To the point that it never rising above subtext felt almost dishonest—like, the relationship obviously ought to go that way, and it's so obvious that it not doing so is frankly unconvincing and unsatisfying.
I really wonder if Broster knew what she was doing here. So far, my opinion has been that her m/m subtext in general is probably not deliberate—largely because of the way she writes het romance like someone who enjoys it for its own sake and genuinely thinks it's the right thing for the characters—but... the thing is, she does seem to be aware on some level that those m/m relationships are not really compatible with her canon romances. (If one was being very uncharitable, one could read the ending of FotH as a tacit admission of that... but I digress). There's a decent argument to be made that it's not a coincidence how, both here and in FotH, the stronger and more obvious feelings and the het love interest are on opposite sides of the relationship in question. Laurent is explicitly jealous of Avoye, the love interest, and it's pretty clear that he'd much rather have Aymar to himself; his attitude to their relationship reads like a sort of wistful resignation to an inevitable loss. And herein is the downfall of the whole thing, for me. One the one side, we've got all that lovingly-detailed relationship development, incisively-portrayed romantic feelings, growing trust and a real sense that these two characters are each other's people, whatever the exact nature of that relationship; on the other side, we've got what amounts to 'he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?'. And the second one wins—it has to be the most important relationship in Aymar's life, no matter how insubstantial and undeserving, because that's how it works. The boy gets the girl, and they get a happily-ever-after. It's not fair and it does the story a great disservice and I hate it.
(I feel more or less the same way about Ewen/Alison, with the added 'it gets in the way of my OTP so it's bad'. I really wish Broster would write stuff like La Vireville/Raymonde or Valentine/Gaston on the one hand, and leave her Aymar/Laurent-type relationships alone on the other! They're both good if you do it that way!)
This book is by far the most similar to Flight of the Heron of any of Broster's other books so far; it kind of reads like Broster was testing out the ideas that she'd later develop to their full potential in FotH. The first part is basically an extended version of the 'Ewen gives away Lochiel's hiding-place by sleep-talking, and Keith comforts him while he's injured and a prisoner' section from FotH (I was almost afraid that the big reveal was going to be that Aymar gave away the information about his plans by talking in his sleep—there is in fact some sleep-talking involved elsewhere in the plot—but happily it's a bit more involved and ingenious than that!). There's the same emphasis on folkloric fate, although less tightly bound up with the plot and less interestingly written. And Aymar is... not quite the same character as Ewen, but they certainly have an awful lot in common. (Laurent is nothing like Keith, however—he's a much less well-developed character). And, while Broster's love of historical detail is certainly here, the historical setting isn't nearly as detailed or as cleverly woven together with the plot and characters as it is in FotH.
What else is there to say about this book? There are some good side characters—M. Perrelet, the irritable but indulgently good-hearted doctor who cares for Aymar during his captivity and comes to like and admire both him and Laurent (also in FotH links, the way Archibald Cameron is written in that book is much the same character type) is a fave. And Colonel Richard, the Imperialist officer to whom Aymar supposedly betrayed his own side, somewhat surprisingly turns out to be a great 'honourable enemy' character. The trial scenes towards the end of the book are properly gripping, even if the big reveal about a certain character's real identity is a little contrived.
On the whole, I didn't really enjoy this one, partly because I couldn't get over that horrible falsehood about the central relationships and partly because of how much it reads like a less well-executed beta version of my great love Flight of the Heron. But I think this is an unfair opinion—it's really a pretty good book, and I can recommend it for anyone who wants to see the best, even if amongst other things, of D. K. Broster's writing.
...Anyway, now I'm going to go and write another few hundred words of Ewen/Keith fic!
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Date: Jul. 13th, 2020 06:37 pm (UTC)I guess it would be pretty easy to read the ending as a set-up for a threesome, or rather, Aymar/Laurent + Aymar/Avoye. Though as Garonne noted, both Aymar and Avoye seem to have pretty conservative sexual morals, so it might be difficult, unless one reads Aymar/Laurent as asexual.
I didn't strongly ship it the way I do Ewen/Keith (IMO it isn't as interesting a relationship in itself)
Yep, I definitely agree. Random other note: I think Ewen is much a better developed character than Aymar, actually.
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 04:46 am (UTC)Hmm, that's quite possible. (The Well of Loneliness, which tackled the same question explicitly and got banned for it, was a few years later, after all). I get the impression Broster does like her canon romances for their own sake (there are some moments both here and in FotH that I'd find really sweet if it was only something I shipped—that's pretty frustrating, haha)—but yeah, there's way more heart in Aymar/Laurent!
Yeah, you could definitely read it as a threesome—although I think for that to feel satisfying for me, both sides of the triangle would have to feel equally compelling and worthwhile, and as it is they really don't.
Random other note: I think Ewen is much a better developed character than Aymar, actually.
I certainly think he fits into the setting and the story better :) What were the important differences, for you?
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 10:17 am (UTC)I've only read Mr Rowl so far that had a central het romance, and that one was quite good, and I think she definitely cared about it! I actively disliked Aymar/Avoye, but besides the fact that it was so little developed, a lot of that was because I dislike the trope where two lovers grew up like siblings, even if they're not actually siblings--it's just icky to me personally. I liked Ewen/Alison much more.
Yeah, you could definitely read it as a threesome—although I think for that to feel satisfying for me, both sides of the triangle would have to feel equally compelling and worthwhile, and as it is they really don't.
Yes...or actually, I could in general enjoy an A/B + A/C story where the first relationship is stronger, but in that case, the C character would need to be much more developed and have more independence and other worthwhile pursuits and relationships of their own than Avoye does. In RL poly relationships, this model is quite common--in fact I've been in a successful such relationship where I was the B person, and I'm still quite good friends with the C person years later (whereas I don't have any contact with A any longer, heh).
I will definitely write a Ewen/Alison + Ewen/Keith story for FotH some time in the future, where I would want both relationships to be strong, and I think I will enjoy exploring the Ewen/Alison relationship and Alison as a character.
(ETA: Though, as Hyarrowen has pointed out, in historical relationships like these one also has to take into account the fact that women were in a much weaker position in society! I will definitely think about that.)
I certainly think he fits into the setting and the story better :) What were the important differences, for you?
Now that you put me on the spot, it is quite possible that I only think so because I've spent so much time with Ewen in my head. : ) But let me try to think of the differences between them: Ewen has a spontaneous warmth that Aymar lacks--he is much more expressionless/difficult to read for me. Ewen has more of a hot temper. I feel like Ewen's love for and connection to Ardroy and the Highlands is more developed than Aymar's for whatever the place is that he lives (sorry, Aymar, I don't even remember the name!). Aymar wallows more and is more self-contained--Ewen could never have kept so long from telling what had happened, to someone that he cared about!
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 04:15 pm (UTC)I dislike the trope where two lovers grew up like siblings, even if they're not actually siblings--it's just icky to me personally
Oh, yeah, that annoyed me too!
I... might have liked Ewen/Alison if it wasn't for Ewen/Keith? I don't know, but I'm just really not a multishipper, I suppose. If I like two characters together, I don't want a third character changing that dynamic, even if I like them—but if three or more characters have a dynamic I like in itself I might well ship them all, together or in different combinations.
I see what you mean about the differences between Aymar and Ewen. I suppose if you compare Aymar's warmth towards Laurent with Ewen's towards Keith they look fairly similar, but of course Laurent only gets that much warmth from Aymar after a lot of effort and developing trust, whereas Ewen treats Keith very generously from the first even though Keith is his enemy. Haha, yes, I did think the setting and significance of Sessignes vs. Ardroy was a particularly blatant example of 'TWN is a less well-executed beta version of FotH' :D
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 05:51 pm (UTC)Interesting, and a totally valid shipping choice, obviously! : ) I dunno, I think I'm the opposite--if it hadn't been for Ewen/Keith, I would probably not have been as interested in FotH as a book and thus also not been that interested in Ewen/Alison. I guess my reason for wanting to write it is partly because (unlike you) I am interested in exploring how it would affect the dynamic between Ewen and Keith, and partly because of a wish to write more developed female characters. Since there's much less of Alison on the page in canon than there is of Ewen and Keith, that also leaves more space for me to explore her character myself.
But, however, I'm in the middle of a longfic now, so that is all some time in the future. : )
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 06:31 pm (UTC)But, however, I'm in the middle of a longfic now, so that is all some time in the future. : )
Well, in any case I'm glad you've got so many more plans for future fics :D
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Date: Jul. 13th, 2020 06:56 pm (UTC)Also, it's always disappointing when, every time a male friendship becomes less important because a het romance pops up, the female character in it is less developed. Broster can definitely write good, interesting female characters, so I'm always disappointed when I see one that's only a plot device! (We really need more Raymondes and Valentines!)
I'm so glad you mentioned this, because there are some bits later in the trilogy that make me feel exactly like this, and I know it's petty of me! But now I feel vindicated!
Anyway I'm definitely going to
hateread this book and see what I feel about it!And yay for fic writing... it sounds like a good way to cleanse your palate, ha!
ETA:
Hehe, it wouldn't be a proper Broster story otherwise! ;)
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 04:52 am (UTC)Totally—poorly developed female characters in annoying het romances are just double the frustration :P I'd really like to see some good female characters with no love interest at all—fingers crossed for the later books...
Well, you're certainly not alone in your pettiness! —seriously, I'm glad to know someone else had the same reaction to this sort of thing—and, oof, I can't say that's an aspect of the later trilogy books that I'm looking forward to :(
And yay for fic writing... it sounds like a good way to cleanse your palate, ha!
I'm trying how many different ways I can come up with to explain in a fic why canon is so wrong here. Right now I'm doing the thoughtfully optimistic take, then when I've read GitN I'll do the tragic-but-affirming take,
then I will get over myself and go on happily ignoring the question entirely.Hehe, it wouldn't be a proper Broster story otherwise! ;)
:D
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 05:23 am (UTC)I just feel it's not fair to the characters--it's a lose-lose situation because the male character loses a deep relationship over another one that's very little developed, and the female characters don't get the characterisation they rightfully deserve (or, to be honest, the one I want! ;)
I also want a Raymonde or Valentine type of character that stays single! so far, Broster's single female characters have been disappointing to me, because I wanted to read so much more about them (just wait until you meet Ewen's cousin Grisel--I have so many feels about her, but I don't want to spoil you!) but I guess that this is what fic is for! I feel that a lot of these characters could have been as good as Raymonde and Valentine, and it was a wasted opportunity to sideline them like this and make them boring plot devices!
It probably was my own particular extremely bitter reading of it, but I just don't like it when an act of self-sacrifice and loyalty and (I'm going to say it) love, like That Ending we don't speak of, is basically a plot device to get rid of a m/m relationship that is, like you said, not compatible with the canon romance. It feels a bit like wanting to have it both ways: having the characters experience The Power Of Friendship but then taking it away because The Power Of (Het) Love is more Important and Meaningful, and if you read it in another way you're just seeing it through a modern lens (because as we know lgbt people were invented last year, so the only possible reading for a male relationship is a homosocial bond) and oh yeah, did I mention it was a bitter reading? (Sorry!)
I am very much looking forward to reading all your takes on this horrible book (and its horrible sequels) especially the ones that involve fix-its! <3 And, if nothing else, the two other books might provide more ideas for alternate endings... it's definitely been happening to me!
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 04:22 pm (UTC)Aww, well, that'll be something to look forward to! I do like Aunt Margaret as a single female character, too (not counting her backstory love interest), although she also doesn't have a very big role in the plot.
...oh yeah, did I mention it was a bitter reading? (Sorry!)
No need to apologise! I completely agree with everything you've said here, and I think it's just more reason to write lots of fix-its where our faves are defiantly alive and together, and that's the absolute best and most fitting way things could have gone for them, actually <3
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Date: Jul. 13th, 2020 08:34 pm (UTC)> I really wonder if Broster knew what she was doing here.
Yeah, I've often wondered that. Though in The Wounded Name it's just so explicit that I find it hard to believe it was unconscious...
I wonder what order Broster came up with her stories. For both The Wounded Name and FotH it feels rather possible to me that the two main characters and the plot came first, and the het romance much later. I mean, the plot of the Wounded Name works in exactly the same way if Avoye is a beloved sister or cousin (which, ickily enough, she pretty much still is in the actual published version too, of course...). You wouldn't even have to change many paragraphs to restrict her to that role. Same for FotH... removing Alison would not change the plot at all. (Although I feel like she does play an important literary role with all those premonitions that the prophecy really means something bad and death is on the horizon!)
A reviewer on Goodreads made what I felt was an interesting comparison: in FotH the central triangle doesn't feel so unsatisfactory because, well, it's resolved when one bit of the triangle is removed, and in Mr Rowl the triangle is resolved because it was never really a viable triangle at all, but in The Wounded Name Broster just leaves us with the triangle at the end and lets us like it or lump it...
I did not see the parallels between Ewen and Aymar until you pointed them out. I guess Aymar likes to wallow in self-pity a bit--even Laurent points it out!--and Ewen doesn't, so that kind of blurred the comparison for me. And of course Laurent only has one character trait--being madly in love with Aymar--so no comparison with Keith there! :D
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 05:04 am (UTC)She knows what she likes, that's for sure! When I've finished reading my way through her novels I'm going to make a bingo card. I think the middle square will just say 'HONOUR' in big letters.
That is a very good point about the potential order of different elements of the stories, and how the love interests are so much more peripheral to the plots. Yeah, and I suppose it's evidence in favour of the 'write the central m/m story you really want to write, then add in a socially-acceptable canon romance as an afterthought' theory!
I did not see the parallels between Ewen and Aymar until you pointed them out. I guess Aymar likes to wallow in self-pity a bit--even Laurent points it out!--and Ewen doesn't, so that kind of blurred the comparison for me.
They're tall, handsome, auburn-haired (I love how Broster goes out of her way to explain why Aymar manages to have red hair despite being French—she certainly has a type :P), scrupulously honourable, bitterly ashamed of something that wounded their honour even though it wasn't really their fault (although in Ewen's case there wasn't actually any damage done—Aymar's is rather more serious, of course), young military leaders of loyal but volatile men, attached to a beautiful and meaningful ancestral home, behave gracefully towards enemies, involved in bird-related folklore, prone to sleep-talking, get injured in ways that provide plenty of opportunity for iddy hurt/comfort...
And yes, Keith's character is much more balanced—being madly in love with Ewen is only one of many interesting traits of his :D
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Date: Jul. 13th, 2020 08:45 pm (UTC)I agree that the Aymar/Avoye thing is paper-thin and the book is really all about the Aymar/Laurent - IIRC Broster even has to lampshade it at one point with all of Laurent's friends and relations wondering who he is in love with - but I can't agree about Ewen/Alison, I love that and I think she's much more fully drawn and the Ewen/Alison relationship is much more realised in the book.
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Date: Jul. 14th, 2020 05:06 am (UTC)You have have good taste—I think Broster would approve :D I certainly appreciated the extended iddy hurt/comfort, and of course the bed-sharing and hand-holding and lovingly detailed growing emotional closeness...
Broster even has to lampshade it at one point with all of Laurent's friends and relations wondering who he is in love with
Oh yes, that bit did make me laugh!
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Date: Jul. 15th, 2020 07:38 am (UTC)You can see DKB getting more assured at this point; it all goes a bit pear-shaped towards the end of her writing career imo but she’s gearing up for the very best of her work. The reception of TWN must have been pretty good for her to pursue the male-friendship theme in her next book. Oddly enough I’ve never felt impelled to hunt the reviews down!
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Date: Jul. 15th, 2020 04:23 pm (UTC)That's a very good point about the structure of FotH, too. As well as the action taking place over a single year, you've also got the prophecy and the five meetings corresponding with the five sections of the book, which gives it a very nice contained structure, whereas TWN is more meandering—and the significant-folklore elements aren't used in such an interesting way either.