"Mr Rowl" by D. K. Broster
Jul. 27th, 2020 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeWe're no longer following D. K. Broster's chronological progression through post-Revolutionary French Royalist history: this book is set in 1813, slightly before The Wounded Name, it takes place entirely in England and, very unusually for Broster, the French hero is not a Royalist, but a loyal officer in the army of Napoleon.
"Mr Rowl" (1924) is Broster's fourth solo novel. The Napoleonic wars are still in progress, and Captain Raoul des Sablières, our hero, is a French prisoner of war on parole in England—the title is the clumsy Anglicisation by which he's known amongst his new neighbours, hence the inverted commas. The book opens with a lovely peaceful Regency drawing-room scene, in which Raoul sings for the company and talks literature with a most charming and independent-minded young lady named Juliana Forrest. But then, due to a set of circumstances not unconnected with the lovely Juliana, Raoul is accused of breaking his parole... from here, the plot is a succession of unfortunate coincidences and things happening at exactly the wrong time; Raoul goes through many trying adventures, and meets a variety of interesting characters along the way, while Juliana works tirelessly to try and save him from his fate.
What I really liked about this book was how much fun it is. It's not that the stakes aren't high—Raoul is plausibly threatened with execution at one point, and nearly dies several times later on—but the general mood feels light-hearted in a way that many of Broster's other stories don't. There's a good-natured humour to the narrative, and a feeling all along that most of the characters are good at heart and that things will work out for the best. The whimsical chapter titles, much like those in Sir Isumbras, certainly help. The structure of the plot, with Raoul passing through a series of different places and scenes and meeting new groups of characters in each one, contributes to this—he makes new friends and sees the good in lots of different people, albeit there's plenty of bad there sometimes. Despite the stakes, there are still opportunities in the plot for wacky hijinks—the bit where Broster tricks the reader about a disguised character's real identity twice in a row is especially memorable! I think Broster was really developing as a writer at this point—she's established the sort of tropes and plot beats that she likes, and her prose style is particularly good in this book, with so many of those perfectly constructed subtle turns of phrase that she's so great at. Honestly, as a writer, I am thoroughly jealous of her ability to put together a sentence.
The main characters make the centre of the book's happy mood. Raoul himself is just loveable—his goodness and sense of humour, combined with strength and persistence and the side of him that his enemies call a 'wildcat', make for a great protagonist. Juliana is definitely one of Broster's better love interest characters—she's determined and fearless, and I really enjoyed watching her try all the stratagems available to her to help Raoul in his plight, working against the restrictions placed on a respectable young lady. I like that she gets involved in Broster's inevitable tangles of honour and betrayal. And I like that she doubts herself, and doesn't always know her own mind—that combination of strength and vulnerability is something Broster does well, and both Juliana and Raoul have it, in different ways. And they bring out the good in each other! As canon romances go, their relationship is pretty tolerable. :)
Unlike Aymar and Ewen, Raoul doesn't have one big central relationship with another male character, although the same sort of relationship dynamics are there, in bits and pieces—there just seems to be something about Raoul that keeps making stern, duty-minded English officers come over all philanthropical! The most important of these, the disgraced naval officer Captain Hervey Barrington, who threatens to recapture Raoul and then does an about-turn and saves his life and cares for him while he's injured instead, is a sweetheart, unexpectedly. His transformation from unforgiving enemy to devoted friend is abrupt and dramatic, perhaps a bit too much so—certainly it's not explored in anything like the detail that Keith Windham's development is—but very lovely to see, and provides Broster with plenty of opportunity for all her favourite hurt/comfort tropes, which I enjoyed very much.
As ever, there are lots of good side characters as well. I particularly liked Miss Barrington, the Captain's sister, with her sharpness and alertness alongside her wicked sense of humour and her indulgent kind-heartedness. Then there's the eccentric geologist doctor who Barrington brings in to care for Raoul, Juliana's dad and the running joke about his resemblance to the Duke of Wellington, Raoul's marching companions on the way to Devonshire, Barrington's housekeeper Mrs Jeremy and her love for Raoul...
If I had a criticism of this book, I'd say that it has far too much unresolved potential—I felt there were a lot of potentially interesting and complicating things that were never explored. Raoul's political allegiances were one of these. He is a Bonapartist, but he comes from an old Royalist family, and he gets an opportunity early on in the book to argue his views with another French character, an émigré who still supports the Bourbons. It's interesting, and a definite development from the assumption of the earlier books that of course the Royalists are right—but it never really goes anywhere. I wondered if Broster was setting things up for what Raoul might end up doing after the Restoration, but the book ends and it's still 1813, so we never find out. The resolution of Raoul and Juliana's relationship felt similarly not quite complete in all its issues—we're reassured that they'll find a way to work things out despite Raoul having to go back to France and their countries still being at war, but we don't get to go through the details of this, and I thought it would have been really interesting to do so, even just in an epilogue set a few years later explaining how they managed it. (Or maybe I just have overly-high expectations for stories dealing with how characters from opposite sides of a war manage to overcome the difficulties in the way of their love after all that FotH fic... :P)
Anyway: another good one, I'm pleased to say! Highly recommended.
So, my read-through has now got up to the Jacobite trilogy... I don't think I'm going to do an actual re-read of Flight of the Heron at this point, but I may write up a post about how reading the books Broster wrote before FotH has influenced my thoughts and understanding of it, because I think there's some interesting stuff there.
"Mr Rowl" (1924) is Broster's fourth solo novel. The Napoleonic wars are still in progress, and Captain Raoul des Sablières, our hero, is a French prisoner of war on parole in England—the title is the clumsy Anglicisation by which he's known amongst his new neighbours, hence the inverted commas. The book opens with a lovely peaceful Regency drawing-room scene, in which Raoul sings for the company and talks literature with a most charming and independent-minded young lady named Juliana Forrest. But then, due to a set of circumstances not unconnected with the lovely Juliana, Raoul is accused of breaking his parole... from here, the plot is a succession of unfortunate coincidences and things happening at exactly the wrong time; Raoul goes through many trying adventures, and meets a variety of interesting characters along the way, while Juliana works tirelessly to try and save him from his fate.
What I really liked about this book was how much fun it is. It's not that the stakes aren't high—Raoul is plausibly threatened with execution at one point, and nearly dies several times later on—but the general mood feels light-hearted in a way that many of Broster's other stories don't. There's a good-natured humour to the narrative, and a feeling all along that most of the characters are good at heart and that things will work out for the best. The whimsical chapter titles, much like those in Sir Isumbras, certainly help. The structure of the plot, with Raoul passing through a series of different places and scenes and meeting new groups of characters in each one, contributes to this—he makes new friends and sees the good in lots of different people, albeit there's plenty of bad there sometimes. Despite the stakes, there are still opportunities in the plot for wacky hijinks—the bit where Broster tricks the reader about a disguised character's real identity twice in a row is especially memorable! I think Broster was really developing as a writer at this point—she's established the sort of tropes and plot beats that she likes, and her prose style is particularly good in this book, with so many of those perfectly constructed subtle turns of phrase that she's so great at. Honestly, as a writer, I am thoroughly jealous of her ability to put together a sentence.
The main characters make the centre of the book's happy mood. Raoul himself is just loveable—his goodness and sense of humour, combined with strength and persistence and the side of him that his enemies call a 'wildcat', make for a great protagonist. Juliana is definitely one of Broster's better love interest characters—she's determined and fearless, and I really enjoyed watching her try all the stratagems available to her to help Raoul in his plight, working against the restrictions placed on a respectable young lady. I like that she gets involved in Broster's inevitable tangles of honour and betrayal. And I like that she doubts herself, and doesn't always know her own mind—that combination of strength and vulnerability is something Broster does well, and both Juliana and Raoul have it, in different ways. And they bring out the good in each other! As canon romances go, their relationship is pretty tolerable. :)
Unlike Aymar and Ewen, Raoul doesn't have one big central relationship with another male character, although the same sort of relationship dynamics are there, in bits and pieces—there just seems to be something about Raoul that keeps making stern, duty-minded English officers come over all philanthropical! The most important of these, the disgraced naval officer Captain Hervey Barrington, who threatens to recapture Raoul and then does an about-turn and saves his life and cares for him while he's injured instead, is a sweetheart, unexpectedly. His transformation from unforgiving enemy to devoted friend is abrupt and dramatic, perhaps a bit too much so—certainly it's not explored in anything like the detail that Keith Windham's development is—but very lovely to see, and provides Broster with plenty of opportunity for all her favourite hurt/comfort tropes, which I enjoyed very much.
As ever, there are lots of good side characters as well. I particularly liked Miss Barrington, the Captain's sister, with her sharpness and alertness alongside her wicked sense of humour and her indulgent kind-heartedness. Then there's the eccentric geologist doctor who Barrington brings in to care for Raoul, Juliana's dad and the running joke about his resemblance to the Duke of Wellington, Raoul's marching companions on the way to Devonshire, Barrington's housekeeper Mrs Jeremy and her love for Raoul...
If I had a criticism of this book, I'd say that it has far too much unresolved potential—I felt there were a lot of potentially interesting and complicating things that were never explored. Raoul's political allegiances were one of these. He is a Bonapartist, but he comes from an old Royalist family, and he gets an opportunity early on in the book to argue his views with another French character, an émigré who still supports the Bourbons. It's interesting, and a definite development from the assumption of the earlier books that of course the Royalists are right—but it never really goes anywhere. I wondered if Broster was setting things up for what Raoul might end up doing after the Restoration, but the book ends and it's still 1813, so we never find out. The resolution of Raoul and Juliana's relationship felt similarly not quite complete in all its issues—we're reassured that they'll find a way to work things out despite Raoul having to go back to France and their countries still being at war, but we don't get to go through the details of this, and I thought it would have been really interesting to do so, even just in an epilogue set a few years later explaining how they managed it. (Or maybe I just have overly-high expectations for stories dealing with how characters from opposite sides of a war manage to overcome the difficulties in the way of their love after all that FotH fic... :P)
Anyway: another good one, I'm pleased to say! Highly recommended.
So, my read-through has now got up to the Jacobite trilogy... I don't think I'm going to do an actual re-read of Flight of the Heron at this point, but I may write up a post about how reading the books Broster wrote before FotH has influenced my thoughts and understanding of it, because I think there's some interesting stuff there.
no subject
Date: Jul. 27th, 2020 08:12 pm (UTC)I feel that something like this should be on the Broster bingo card, haha. Captain Barrington's unexpected friendship with Raoul was really lovely, and ohh, I loved Miss Barrington too! Like with most of Broster's secondary characters, I wanted to see more of her, because she is snarky and delightful and so great!
Speaking of wanting to see more of characters (and situations), I totally agree about all the unresolved potential and loose ends in this book. Having poked at some of her books in a disorderly way, I've noticed this several times already, so I've been wondering if this open-ended thing became deliberate in her writing later--but I won't say anything more about it... because, also, no spoilers!
Ohh, no pressure, but I hope you do, because that sounds really great! :D
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 04:22 pm (UTC)Having poked at some of her books in a disorderly way, I've noticed this several times already, so I've been wondering if this open-ended thing became deliberate in her writing later
Hmm, that's interesting! Perhaps she was keeping things open for the possibility of writing more about the same characters later on? In any case, I shall pay attention for what happens with open-ended stories in the later books...
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 04:30 pm (UTC)Totally! And the variety keeps the Suffering at bearable levels... I think!
That makes a lot of sense, especially when you think about how she tried her hand at the book series thing twice, and also had characters from one book pop up in again in later ones. In any case, open endings are interesting... a bit frustrating perhaps, but definitely a good starting point for coming up with all sorts of "what if" scenarios!
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 04:35 pm (UTC)In any case, open endings are interesting... a bit frustrating perhaps, but definitely a good starting point for coming up with all sorts of "what if" scenarios!
Yes, absolutely! And it's good to leave plenty of room for fic, of course...
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 01:11 am (UTC)I’d forgotten about the eccentric doctor. I’ll have to re-read it (if I ever get through Sir Isumbras; a whole page of phonetically written dialect to start with, plus characters acting like idiots as aforementioned, brought my reading of that to a full stop.)
I’d certainly be interested in your further thoughts on FotH. You do such insightful stuff on it; I’m basically in it for the h/c and the m/m love story so its nice to get deeper perspectives.
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 04:27 pm (UTC)if I ever get through Sir Isumbras; a whole page of phonetically written dialect to start with, plus characters acting like idiots as aforementioned, brought my reading of that to a full stop.
Oh dear, was that where they happily send Anne off to stay with the des Chaulnes, what could possibly go wrong? That was a bit of a contrived set-up, yeah.
You do such insightful stuff on it; I’m basically in it for the h/c and the m/m love story so its nice to get deeper perspectives.
Aww, thank you! I mean, I'm definitely mostly here for the h/c and slash too, however :P
no subject
Date: Jul. 29th, 2020 08:06 am (UTC)Sir Isumbras - yes, the isolation of Anne made my blood run cold, which I'm sure it wasn't supposed to do. Does it get less horrifying later on?
no subject
Date: Jul. 29th, 2020 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 02:37 pm (UTC)If I had a criticism of this book, I'd say that it has far too much unresolved potential
Does it make you want to write fic?
I may write up a post about how reading the books Broster wrote before FotH has influenced my thoughts and understanding of it, because I think there's some interesting stuff there.
Would definitely want to read!
no subject
Date: Jul. 28th, 2020 04:32 pm (UTC)A good choice :D
Does it make you want to write fic?
Hmm, I don't know! I think a post-canon fic exploring what Raoul and Juliana do, personally and politically, after the Bourbon Restoration could be pretty interesting, although I'm not sure I want to do all the historical research necessary to write it myself.
no subject
Date: Jul. 29th, 2020 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 30th, 2020 05:38 pm (UTC)Ha, yes, Mr Rowl is a lot of fun :) So many great characters. I was expecting the officer who brought Raoul to the coast to turn up again, but he didn't. I guess he was just there to demonstrate Raoul's irresistible charm *g*
I was not totally convinced by Raoul/Juliana, probably because we don't see that much of them together on-page, and so I couldn't help feeling like I was left wondering how things will really work out for them in the future. But I was very convinced by Juliana herself as a character. I couldn't help wishing it was her plan that saved Raoul in the end, instead of having the wrong timing.
I may write up a post about how reading the books Broster wrote before FotH has influenced my thoughts and understanding of it, because I think there's some interesting stuff there
I would love to read that if you do write it! I always get a lot out of your reviews. You seem to notice so many aspects of the story that I've missed. (For instance, I did not even notice Aymar and Ewen had the same hair colour, never mind any of the other similarities!)
no subject
Date: Jul. 31st, 2020 04:55 am (UTC)I was expecting the officer who Raoul saved at Badajoz to be a more important character—not that he isn't important in the end, of course, but that situation sounded just like a set-up for Broster's fave relationship dynamics. But no, Raoul just gets another devoted admirer :D
I couldn't help wishing it was her plan that saved Raoul in the end, instead of having the wrong timing.
Yeah! I enjoyed the 'otherwise good thing happens at just the wrong time' irony, but it would've been better for Juliana.
I would love to read that if you do write it! I always get a lot out of your reviews.
Thank you :D