{"id":24743,"date":"2014-03-20T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T17:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=24743"},"modified":"2014-03-02T12:30:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T23:30:45","slug":"more-on-mary-stewarts-madam-will-you-talk-what-im-not-so-keen-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/03\/20\/more-on-mary-stewarts-madam-will-you-talk-what-im-not-so-keen-on\/","title":{"rendered":"More On Mary Stewart’s “Madam, Will You Talk”: What I’m Not So Keen On"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday I talked about what I loved best about Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk<\/em><\/strong>: namely a brave and resourceful heroine, Charity Selborne, with a clear moral compass, who is still has a great deal to offer readers fifty nine years after first publication in 1955.<\/p>\n

There is one aspect of the book though, that I am not so keen on, which is that Stewart does stick with the persistent ‘romantic’ trope that it is credible for a woman to fall in love with a man who has terrified and threatened her — before the misunderstandings on both side that have led to this situation are clarified and resolved.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the book is still not repugnant in this respect, because the male protagonist plays on Charity’s belief that he is a murderer rather than actually committing wrongdoing, but nonethless Charity believes he is an evildoer and is in fact — unsurprisingly — terrified of him. But still, to fall in love with someone under those circumstances, seems unlikely at best, but is more likely wildly improbable.<\/p>\n

And may I say, it’s really hard to see where the attraction in such characters lies.<\/p>\n

I’d also like to argue that it’s an element that is of the book’s time and to read it in that context—but since the trope not only persists but is still widespread in “romantic” scenarios I can’t do that. To give Stewart credit though, it’s really the only time she uses it amongst those of her novels I’ve read — and as aforesaid, her use of the trope in this case is in a sufficiently mild form that it does not negate the numerous excellencies of the story.<\/p>\n

So Madam, Will You Talk<\/em><\/strong> is still recommended reading, despite an element that I’m not so keen on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I talked about what I loved best about Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk: namely a brave and resourceful heroine, Charity Selborne, with a clear moral compass, who is still has a great deal to offer readers fifty nine years after first publication in 1955. There is one aspect of the book though, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-other-writers","category-recommended-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24743"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24793,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24743\/revisions\/24793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}