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May. 28th, 2024 06:32 amThe first stop on our trip, after a couple lovely days spent hanging out with various friends in London, was noted Welsh bookstore town Hay-on-Wye.
ME: So I shouldn't bring any physical books with me to start with as I expect we will be stocking up greatly in Hay and we need to save luggage space.
BETH: Makes sense.
ME: Except we're going to have a plane ride and two days in London first, so I need to bring an emergency paperback in case my e-reader dies or runs out of power during that time ...
BETH, KINDLY NOT LAUGHING AT ME: Oh, of course.
ME: But it can be a catch-and-release book! we can get rid of it after we've both read it to save luggage space!
My chosen emergency paperback was Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax, which I had not read since 2008 and had fun memories of but did not fully expect to hold up.
Alas! it did in fact hold up.
The Unknown Ajax is one of Heyer's less romance-shaped romances, focusing on the son of a disinherited aristocrat who ran away to marry a weaver's daughter (gasp!). Because of Complex British Inheritance Systems and a couple of unexpected deaths, Hugo's now just become his autocratic grandfather's heir against both of their wills, and has been summoned to the Big House to Meet the Family.
Hugo is a protagonist in the mode of Sarah Thane from Talisman Ring: fundamentally a kind and competent individual fellow with a deeply reprehensible (laudatory) sense of humor. Immediately recognizes that everyone he's interacting with has fully bought into a rather stupid genre, he decides he might as well have a good time with it. Heyer's classism is often one of her worst traits, but it's a lot more fun here where we're in it with Hugo and the joke is on everyone else. I often can't read too many Heyers in a row before longing to meet someone, anyone, who's got a real job; Hugo is a guy who has in fact had a real job, looking at a house full of desperately bored and trapped idle rich kids, and thinking with irony and pity in his heart "wow! you live like this?"
The rest of the book is largely about cousin bonding: to continue on the Cahoots Theory of Heyer, although Hugo starts out only in cahoots with himself, the actual plot is just Hugo drawing all his new cousins into cahoots with him in spite of themselves. One of the cousins is of course an attractive and spirited young lady, but she does not actually take up any more space in the book than the Restless Teen Cousin, the Amiable Fashion Cousin, or the Haughty Mean Cousin as they collectively navigate a local smuggling situation. (This last subplot did have a profound impact on me as I went around the UK for the next two weeks, exclaiming that various scenic locations would make wonderful smuggler's hideouts.) ( spoilers )
Still as it turns out a top-tier Heyer and thus still on my shelf, and RIP to all my sensible plans of making luggage space.
ME: So I shouldn't bring any physical books with me to start with as I expect we will be stocking up greatly in Hay and we need to save luggage space.
BETH: Makes sense.
ME: Except we're going to have a plane ride and two days in London first, so I need to bring an emergency paperback in case my e-reader dies or runs out of power during that time ...
BETH, KINDLY NOT LAUGHING AT ME: Oh, of course.
ME: But it can be a catch-and-release book! we can get rid of it after we've both read it to save luggage space!
My chosen emergency paperback was Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax, which I had not read since 2008 and had fun memories of but did not fully expect to hold up.
Alas! it did in fact hold up.
The Unknown Ajax is one of Heyer's less romance-shaped romances, focusing on the son of a disinherited aristocrat who ran away to marry a weaver's daughter (gasp!). Because of Complex British Inheritance Systems and a couple of unexpected deaths, Hugo's now just become his autocratic grandfather's heir against both of their wills, and has been summoned to the Big House to Meet the Family.
Hugo is a protagonist in the mode of Sarah Thane from Talisman Ring: fundamentally a kind and competent individual fellow with a deeply reprehensible (laudatory) sense of humor. Immediately recognizes that everyone he's interacting with has fully bought into a rather stupid genre, he decides he might as well have a good time with it. Heyer's classism is often one of her worst traits, but it's a lot more fun here where we're in it with Hugo and the joke is on everyone else. I often can't read too many Heyers in a row before longing to meet someone, anyone, who's got a real job; Hugo is a guy who has in fact had a real job, looking at a house full of desperately bored and trapped idle rich kids, and thinking with irony and pity in his heart "wow! you live like this?"
The rest of the book is largely about cousin bonding: to continue on the Cahoots Theory of Heyer, although Hugo starts out only in cahoots with himself, the actual plot is just Hugo drawing all his new cousins into cahoots with him in spite of themselves. One of the cousins is of course an attractive and spirited young lady, but she does not actually take up any more space in the book than the Restless Teen Cousin, the Amiable Fashion Cousin, or the Haughty Mean Cousin as they collectively navigate a local smuggling situation. (This last subplot did have a profound impact on me as I went around the UK for the next two weeks, exclaiming that various scenic locations would make wonderful smuggler's hideouts.) ( spoilers )
Still as it turns out a top-tier Heyer and thus still on my shelf, and RIP to all my sensible plans of making luggage space.
