(no subject)

[skygiants]

My favorite thing about Joan Aiken is how you can never tell whether she is writing a parody, or if this is how she genuinely thinks her chosen genre ought to go. Beware of the Bouquet is a typical Gothic much like The Whispering Mountain, which contains a secret tribe of lost camels under the mountain and tragically ill attack snakes who need to receive immediate medical attention, is a typical numinous Welsh fantasy.

The heroine, Martha, works for an advertising company which has had the bad fortune to pick up some unpleasant new clients who want them to promote their fabulous new perfume. Martha has the brilliant idea to get all Arthurian on it and take them to a tiny British castle on the coast to do the shoot.

MARTHA'S LOVE INTEREST: So, why that castle, Martha?
MARTHA: Well, ten years ago, I was briefly and tragically married to a devastatingly attractive young man who then became obsessed with the monks who live near that castle, developed a major personality disorder, and mysteriously disappeared, so I figured I might see if he happened to be there and drop in to say hi. You know, closure.
MARTHA'S LOVE INTEREST: ...
MARTHA: Also if we're on the beach we can also take the opportunity to do some shoots for our other project, the one with the cans of miracle self-heating explosive soup!

So everyone, including Martha, her love interest, her coworker who is angry Russian nobility (not that this is relevant to the plot in any way), and the mysteriously beautiful Italian wife of the unpleasant perfumer all head out to an isolated castle. Shortly afterwards, Martha is driving back to set one night when her car breaks down and she accidentally stumbles over some sinister persons kidnapping the world's prettiest baby! At which point she takes the sensible step of scooping up the baby and running.

MARTHA: Great, now I gotta be responsible for this baby! I hate babies!
THE WORLD'S PRETTIEST BABY: *smiles*
MARTHA: ...except this baby. This baby is the BEST baby. *___* I will call her Shrubsole.
(SHRUBSOLE: ...why.)

Martha temporarily drops the world's prettiest baby off with the local sinister monks, who a.) happen to have a baby collection and b.) also happen to include her ex-husband --

MARTHA'S EX: Yo.
MARTHA: Yo.
MARTHA'S EX: ...so this is awkward.
MARTHA: Yeah. Uh, so you help take care of the baby collection, then?
MARTHA'S EX: Oh god, no, I hate babies! They're the worst! things! in the world! NOOOOOO *runs away*
MARTHA: ...so that was weird.

-- and in short order figures out that the baby belongs to the beautiful and mysterious Italian wife! who is being menaced by her husband and his friends! because of PERFUME-RELATED SECRETS!

THE BEAUTIFUL AND MYSTERIOUS ITALIAN WIFE: But, I mean, you're cool helping the monks take care of the baby for a while, right? I have to keep her safe from my evil husband and also it is very important that I go out partying with this visiting Sultan who has turned up in this tiny British town.
(VISITING SULTAN: Heyo!)
MARTHA: This would not be OK if it was not for the fact that your baby is the WORLD'S BEST BABY, omg. *__*

Then there's some more life-threatening incidents, including a BOX OF POISONOUS SPIDERS, and Martha decides it is time to take the baby back to London to stay with her love interest's sister.

THE MONKS: You can't take the world's best baby away from us though! ;__;
MARTHA: Look, I really have got to take the baby. You've still got a whole collection of other babies!
THE MONKS: ... ok, it's fine, here's a baby. TAKE THIS BABY. DON'T LOOK AT THE BABY'S FACE.
MARTHA: ...Why...
THE MONKS: No .... reason ....

It takes Martha like four hours and a kidnapping to figure out the baby swap, for the record. FOUR HOURS.

Everything escalates rapidly from there, with all the dramatic chase scenes, exploding soup cans and surprise elopements with visiting Sultans that one might expect from a standard Gothic novel, but my favorite part is how all of the dramatic motivations for the bizarre actions of the cast members are just, like, "Martha's ex just really doesn't like kids, OK?" and "the sinister monks really DO just think that Shrubsole is the world's prettiest baby!" Sure, makes sense. Seems legit.

Comments

[lnhammer]

Typically, I expect exploding soup cans to stay firmly in my middle grade comedies. Especially those involving entrepreneurial hijinks by elementary school kids.

Typically.

---L.

[skygiants]

I also do not expect psychic shipwrecked sailors in my Jane Austen sequels, but this is what makes Joan Aiken magical!

[kore]

-- wait wait what? Where?

[skygiants]

Lady Catherine's Necklace! My all-time favorite bizarre published Austen fanfiction. :D

[kore]

I HAVE THAT. Somewhere! I got a bunch of Aiken-Austens and then flaked out on reading them all after finishing a couple.

[skygiants]

I've not read any of her other Austens, mostly because I'm afraid that none of them will live up to that magical experience, but I really should. Any you would rec?

[kore]

Oh man, according to my booklog I apparently read Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax and have absolutely no idea what went on in them. Argh.

[sovay]

a bunch of Aiken-Austens

WAIT WHAT?

[kore]

The sequels! http://www.joanaiken.com/pages/janeausten.html

[sovay]

The sequels!

WHAT.

[kore]

....oh dear, someone please get her a nice cup of tea

[sovay]

....oh dear, someone please get her a nice cup of tea

I'm just hoping they're as full-bore batshit as her Arthurian sequel.

[skygiants]

Judging from the one sample I have read: they are. Oh, THEY ARE.

[sovay]

they are. Oh, THEY ARE.

All right. I can cope with that.

(. . . why did she write multiple full-length Austen sequels?)

[skygiants]

(In the immortal words of the Backstreet Boys, tell me why ain't nothing but a heartache.)

[sovay]

(In the immortal words of the Backstreet Boys, tell me why ain't nothing but a heartache.)

I have never read Joan Aiken and thought, "Now there is an author with a natural affinity for Austen." I was curious if she'd ever said anything about it.

[skygiants]

Well, she definitely had Austen much in her thoughts -- here's an essay of hers on how one might revise Northanger Abbey, and here's a review of some Jane Austen biographies, both quite reasonable and not (from a first glance) in any way indicative of a propensity to add psychic shipwrecked sailors to the canon.

...but it doesn't really surprise me that of all the Austens she has a lot to say about Northanger Abbey...

[kore]

Well, at least one of them has 'psychic shipwrecked sailors'! //points up

[lnhammer]

WHAT YOU SAID. IN SPADES. AND THE TRUMP SUIT.

[lnhammer]

True enough.

---L.

[sovay]

much like The Whispering Mountain, which contains a secret tribe of lost camels under the mountain and tragically ill attack snakes who need to receive immediate medical attention, is a typical numinous Welsh fantasy.

I adore that book so much.

our other project, the one with the cans of miracle self-heating explosive soup!

What is this, darkfic for The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel)?

but my favorite part is how all of the dramatic motivations for the bizarre actions of the cast members are just, like, "Martha's ex just really doesn't like kids, OK?" and "the sinister monks really DO just think that Shrubsole is the world's prettiest baby!"

Out of curiosity, does Martha ever get closure with her ex about their personality-disorder-and-sinister-monk-ridden breakup?

[skygiants]

She does! It turns out his entire dramatic personality change and decision to flee to a monastery was triggered by the fact that she wanted children and he hates them because of ... backstory angst? His mom died in chilbirth? SOMETHING.

Anyway at the end he is able to overcome his hatred long enough to rescue Shrubsole during a key moment and then return to his monastery, which is indicative of character growth and provides closure.

[sovay]

It turns out his entire dramatic personality change and decision to flee to a monastery was triggered by the fact that she wanted children and he hates them

. . . obviously failing to check in advance whether the monastery he fled to had an extant policy of collecting babies.

[skygiants]

I mean to be fair it's not a usual thing to expect in a monastery, I suppose. Usually they just have the one plot-relevant baby, and you can skate by in perfectly happy baby-free bliss until then.

[kore]

Now I'm trying to remember if there's a baby in The Monk....

[skygiants]

I think there is at least one pregnancy, but no full-fledged babies! Or at least not until the very end, anyway. It's possible Agnes gives birth while being held nun-prisoner.

[kore]

God that book is so wonderfully batshit. I need to read it again.

[kore]

And off-the-cuff Raskin references are just one of the many reasons why we <3 you.

[rushthatspeaks]

The sad thing is that I can tell that I would have the same exact problem with this one that I always have with Joan Aiken, namely that she always does exactly the plot thing I would have decided upon in the same circumstances and as a result I am bored as hell.

In an effort to explain/defend this statement, I just detailed for my wife why it is that Shrubsole has to be the world's prettiest baby. It goes like this:

-- okay, so the protagonist's husband has left her, but they were married
-- they would not have gotten married if they had a fundamental incompatibility about children and the desirability thereof
-- much of the plot is driven by his hate of babies
-- therefore, she hates babies
-- but the plot requires she spend a lot of time in proximity to a baby, which would not make sense if she hated this baby
-- why is this baby different from all other babies

= WORLD'S PRETTIEST. All of Joan Aiken is completely logical in that way. All of the plot elements are totally deducible from first principles, and consequently I have basically given up trying to read Joan Aiken. Except The Stolen Lake, which is the one that is actually from Mars.

After getting this far in the explanation I was informed that my logic is not intuitively logical, but I have to say I don't see how.

[skygiants]

Your logic is actually not quite in accordance with the book's first logic (in fact the husband's dramatic monk-related breakdown was apparently triggered by a disagreement over the desirability of personal babies) but I will accept it as reasonable.

However what I would really like to ask is: do Lady Catherine's Necklace! I want to understand the logic behind the shipwrecked painter having psychic visions of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. PLEASE.

[rushthatspeaks]

I shall endeavor to locate a copy of Lady Catherine's Neckalace!

[skygiants]

Please do! It is tied with The Stolen Lake as my high-water mark of Weird Aiken, I would love to see if it seems so to you also. (My other favorite part is that I honestly do not know if a character is meant to have a dramatic reveal at the end that they were cross-dressing the whole time or not. I seriously cannot tell.)

[rachelmanija]

You forgot the ravenous slugs that eat the plot device.

[sovay]

You forgot the ravenous slugs that eat the plot device.

That had better not be the baby.

[skygiants]

The thing is I only read the book a few weeks ago and I had literally, actually forgotten the ravenous slugs.

[luzula]

...this sounds so weird.

(Also, I am reading that Czerneda book now, and enjoying it! Your recent post bumped it up on my to-read list. : ) )

[skygiants]

(Oh good, I'm glad you're liking it! :D)

[kore]

//just falls out laughing

[skygiants]

Joan Aiken is a magical lady.

[allchildren]

Becca do you ever read normal books and if so when.

[skygiants]

Define 'normal books'....

[lnhammer]

Ones that don't deserve your icon there.

---L.

[skygiants]

Well, where's the fun in that?

[lnhammer]

Good question.

[lacewood]

I've actually never read any of Aiken's non-children's books. I can't decide if I should fix this or... leave myself in (relative) peace...

I mean, perhaps I should be content with death by revolving castle and rollerskates Westminister? Or perhaps, having already happily read my way through the above, why NOT go the whole hog? A DILEMMA.

[skygiants]

GO ALL THE WAY AND NEVER LOOK BACK. I mean ... it's really not all that different from reading the children's books ... :D?

[lacewood]

Your argument is compelling and yet... kind of ominous... Maybe one day I will have defeated this TBR stack enough to check if the library has any specimens. >_> /makes mental note

For that matter, I still haven't read The Witch of Clatteringshaws. ONE DAY I WILL FINALLY FIND IT.

[skygiants]

Oh man, Witch of Clatteringshaws though. It is .... I don't even know how to describe Witch of Clatteringshaws. I LITERALLY CAN'T MAKE SENSE OF ANY OF IT.