(no subject)

[skygiants]

This weekend I was trying to explain Brat Farrar to genarti thusly: "It's sort of like what I imagine a Dick Francis novel is like? IT HAS LOTS OF HORSES IN IT."

genarti looked skeptical of the validity of this comparison, as indeed she might well, because, as you guys know, I have never in fact read a Dick Francis novel. But I liked Brat Farrar a lot so now my subconscious is probably going to be more warmly inclined towards Dick Francis in future.

Brat Farrar is one of those books where a conveniently missing-presumed-dead heir coincides with a convenient lookalike -- the titular Brat Farrar, a twenty-something horse-obsessed drifter who's been having a hard time finding work after an accident that gave him a permanent limp. Brat is discovered by an unscrupulous individual right as Simon Ashby, whose older twin Patrick fell off a cliff at the age of 13, is about to come of age and into Patrick's inheritance.

UNSCRUPULOUS INDIVIDUAL: All you have to do is sashay in and say that you're Patrick and you ran away instead of throwing yourself off a cliff and it was all a misunderstanding! NOBODY WILL KNOW.
BRAT FARRAR: This sounds very unethical and I am very uninterested.
UNSCRUPULOUS INDIVIDUAL: And then you would be come into all this money and be heir to the family's very lovely stables and --
BRAT FARRAR: ... wait hold the phone, did you say horses? Like, I could work in the stables?
UNSCRUPULOUS INDIVIDUAL: Um, I mean, yes, you would own the stable, and also have giant pots of money, so ...
BRAT FARRAR: You have stumbled on the one temptation I cannot resist, LEAD ME TO THE HORSES IMMEDIATELY.

So Brat, with a few mild twinges of conscience, sails into the impersonation game and meets the rest of the family, including Original Patrick's aunt and three younger sisters, and discovers .... awkwardly .... that, with the exception of Charming But Resentful Fake Twin Simon, he actually really, really likes all of them ...... and they all really like him ...........

(In some cases, of course, a little too much:

BRAT: Hmmm, I wonder why it bugs me so much when my littlest fake sisters tell me that cool, pretty, clever, possibly even more horse-obsessed than me Fake Sister Eleanor might have a boyfriend ...?
BRAT: WHOA WAIT. SELF. FAKE PATRICK. STOP THIS, FAKE PATRICK. DON'T MAKE IT WEIRD, FAKE BRO.)

And, you know, there is a mystery about what really happened to Original Patrick, and some suspense and maybe some attempted murder and so on, and all this is fun but really the stuff that's interesting about the book is this family, the conflict between Brat's increasing feelings like he does belong with this family (......except for the parts that are weird, DON'T MAKE IT WEIRD BRAT) and his underlying knowledge that his whole presence there is based on a lie. It's on both sides, too -- the other POV character besides Brat is Fake Patrick's Aunt Bee, who's been raising the kids for the past ten years, so you get to see the family's growing attachment to Fake Patrick through her, and what his return means to them; everyone is very sympathetic and it's super emotionally compelling.

Also there is a really fantastic horse that murders people for fun, I'm so fond of the murder horse.

(Things I'm less fond of: Josephine Tey's classism and the fact that, despite her many interesting female characters, she clearly considers girls who do not like horses to be a bit less sympathetic than girls who do, BUT YOU KNOW.)

Comments

[sdelmonte]

Tey is an interesting writer, though after a while her books sort of blend into a genial mush with a very small number of highlights (like her questionable defense of Richard III against the charge of murdering the Two Princes). Overall, I find her works to be enjoyable, but they lack the memorable characters of the better Christie novels and strong plots of Sayers, and certainly pale in comparison to later writers in the same area of mystery such as Highsmith.

[pedanther]

I've always liked Brat Farrar - as you say, it's the family dynamics that make it - but it's getting to the point where I can't re-read it without noticing all the places where sympathetic characters are actually quite mean to other characters whom the author has marked as Not One of Us.

Do you know about Jo Walton's theory that Brat Farrar is set in an alternate universe? It comes out of the way that Tey set it sort of half-heartedly after WWII, so that people mention Hitler and the War occasionally but there's no real sign of the effects the War actually had on England - and then there's the bit where someone casually mentions a holiday to France eight years ago, in a book published in 1949.

Jo figured out that all of these references could be reconciled by positing an alternate timeline where England got a different government after Chamberlain resigned, which signed a peace agreement with Germany early on, leaving England sitting pretty while Hitler got on with ravaging the continent.

(Then she actually wrote a novel of her own set in that timeline - Farthing, which is a deconstructed country house murder mystery, is excellent and I really should get around to reading the sequels one of these days.)

I remember once Jo was explaining all this online, and somebody remarked that they didn't like to think of the horrible things that might happen to our beloved Ashbys in an England ruled by people who didn't mind Hitler. And Jo said no, it was much worse than that: for the Ashbys, and the people the Ashbys cared about, it wouldn't make any difference.

[skygiants]

This is only the second of her books I've read, and the first was Daughter of Time about fifteen years ago, so to me she is a charming new-ish discovery!

[skygiants]

I've read and enjoyed both Farthing and sequels (the second is probably my favorite -- AU Mitford Sisters!), but had no idea that it emerged from this theory about Brat Farrar! That's amazing (and terrifyingly plausible.)

(My secret favorite character is the Terrible Shallow Teenager who can't ride horses and dreams about seducing Simon. She's more straightforward than anybody! In a book primarily centered around TWO HUGE LIES you would think SOMEONE would recognize that that sort of honesty is a virtue.)

[ceitfianna]

I remember being pleasantly surprised by Brat Farrar and I think I liked it best of Tey's novels. Also I really love plots that involve convoluted identities. If you ever do want to read Dick Francis, I recommend starting with Field of Thirteen. Its his book of short stories and within it covers pretty much every trope that gets hit in his books among all the stories.

[skygiants]

Yes, identity stuff can be really cool! And Tey does it terribly well.

Someday I will read Dick Francis but for now my subconscious is still having so much fun with never having read Dick Francis that I'm going to let it enjoy itself a little longer. :D

[leecetheartist]

I must read this book!

[rushthatspeaks]

I like how perfect a gender-swap it is of the classic Girl Meets House Gothic, and how different from that standard the gender-swap makes it seem.

[intothespin]

(Things I'm less fond of: Josephine Tey's classism and the fact that, despite her many interesting female characters, she clearly considers girls who do not like horses to be a bit less sympathetic than girls who do, BUT YOU KNOW.)

LEAVE THE FRANCHISE AFFAIR TILL LAST. MAYBE SKIP IT ENTIRELY.

I am so fond of this one.

[skygiants]

Yes do, it's extremely enjoyable!

[skygiants]

...good lord, it is, it ONE HUNDRED PERCENT is, I'm even more charmed by it now. Ah, Brat, our plucky good-hearted ingenue!

[skygiants]

I feel like Miss Pym Disposes should be my next, am I correct in this?

[rymenhild]

I was thinking about this. Walton's post is at http://www.tor.com/2010/09/10/a-pit-in-dothan-josephine-teys-brat-farrar/.

[skygiants]

Thank you for the link!

[pedanther]

*considers this*

*adds The Franchise Affair to the "do not reread unless you want to know for sure just how bad this book that used to be a favourite really is" pile, next to Bulldog Drummond*

[raincitygirl]

I remember "Daughter of Time" with a great deal of fondness, but dear God was "The Franchise Affair" ever a horrible, horrible, mean-spirited, classist, "bitches lie about rape" style book. I remember reading it after "Daughter of Time" when I was about 12, and really liking it. And then I picked it up again when I was 21 or so and was just so ANGRY with Josephine Tey for having written it, to the point where I never read anything else of hers again. Except "Daughter of Time" which I bought on Kindle shortly after they found Richard III's grave underneath a Leicester car park. But I didn't dare read any of her other books in case they turned out to be as rage-inducing as "The Franchise Affair". I will have to look this one up.

Incidentally, if you are looking to get into Dick Francis, there are 3 books I would recommend. In descending order they are:

Flying Finish
To the Hilt
Banker

The rest of the books kind of blur together in my mind, but those 3 stick out. In particular Flying Finish has an awesome heroine who is doing spoilery and very subversive awesome things. Things which would still be kind of controversial in 2016, and she was doing them in 1966.

[skygiants]

....so it sounds solidly like The Franchise Affair is one to avoid, then! GOOD TO HAVE THAT CONFIRMED.

No, there's stuff in Brat Farrar class-wise that is moderately annoying, but it's enough out of focus and the central plot and characters are charming enough that it didn't ruin the book for me.

[china_shop]

Also there is a really fantastic horse that murders people for fun, I'm so fond of the murder horse.

Hee! <3

[sovay]

This weekend I was trying to explain Brat Farrar to genarti thusly

Brat Farrar is one of two novels remaining by Josephine Tey that I haven't read! The other, however, is Miss Pym Disposes, which I failed to engage with on first attempt and have been grateful about bouncing from ever since. Also I cannot in any way recommend The Franchise Affair. But I will always love The Daughter of Time and To Love and Be Wise does some really great things I can't talk about without total book spoilers.

Do you want recommendations for Dick Francis? My mother owns every mystery he ever wrote, so I've read a fair number. Reflex (1980) is my favorite.

[sovay]

....so it sounds solidly like The Franchise Affair is one to avoid, then!

HOLY BLAP, YES.

[littlerhymes]

I love that murder horse. I LOVE IT.

Tey's To Love & Be Wise hit me in a lot of the same places as Brat Farrar and it is full of amazing things that cannot be discussed without spoilers.

Also a friend told me about Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree, which is a genderswapped Brat Farrar! It sounds a lot less interesting in how it resolves the mystery but I want to give it a try anyway.

I back those recs for Dick Francis' Flying Finish and To The Hilt. I also love Bonecrack and Wild Horses. He does mystery so satisfyingly.

[rushthatspeaks]

For reasons that I believe you would share, I want to fire Miss Pym Disposes INTO THE FUCKING SUN and wish that book DID NOT EXIST TO LEAP OUT AT UNSUSPECTING READERS. Like, I read The Daughter of Time and it was fun, and I read Brat Farrar and I loved it, and then I read Miss Pym Disposes and I can neither read any more Josephine Tey nor reread the two I have because FUCK. THAT. BOOK.

The premise of Miss Pym Disposes literally turns out to be 'higher education for women is bad and women's colleges make you homicidal', which is made worse by it being a genuinely good portrayal of life in a women's college, like, she got it right and *then* she's like 'and exactly this atmosphere is what makes women from those places such crazy hysterical bitches!'

DON'T.

[jamethiel]

For anyone who does as I do and uses skygiants as an impromptu director of reading lists, you can find a free (legal, as it's out of copyright) at The University of Adelaide or Project Gutenberg Canada

(Thank you, by the way, for the Elizabeth Sanxay Holding recs. I very much enjoy her work.)

I enjoy Tey's stuff, but for me she's sort of up there with Ngaio Marsh. Charming books, buuuut I suspect if I met these people in real life I would end up biting my tongue a lot before I hauled off and hissed pointed obscenities about how [racist/classist/sexist/generally awful, pick one or all] they are.

[legionseagle]

Thanks for saying what I was planning on on Miss Pym Disposes (with a side order of "Nut Tart? REALLY?")

I agree about the things which make The Franchise Affair so hard to take now (I wrote a couple of posts here and here (significant spoilers)) but I think it's also technically one of the better things she wrote.

What about The Man in the Queue? It's her first, it's set in the late 1920s so is easy to put down as a charming period piece, and it's got some of the best female characters she ever wrote.

I also have a soft spot for To Love and Be Wise because she absolutely skewers the "unspoilt village a convenient commute from London now hopelessly overrun by luvvies" to hilarious effect.

Found it

[leecetheartist]

Project Gutenberg to the rescue. It's *delightful*!