skygiants | (no subject)

So here's the irony: for the past decade I've been asking for a Ruritanian Romance About Democracy, and now it turns out that someone has written it, and the person who wrote it was WINSTON CHURCHILL, who just had an astounding amount of feelings about constitutions and the very dashing heroes who defend them with brilliant politics.

Also, unfortunately, it stars Winston Churchill's self-insert, who is insufferable, but, I mean, raise your hand if you're surprised by this. Anybody?

genarti is the person who turned up the existence of Savrola: A Tale of Revolution in Laurania, By Winston Churchill, Age Twenty-Five And A Half. The basic plot is as follows: a dictator has subverted the LAURANIAN CONSTITUTION and taken away the all-important RIGHT OF THE FRANCHISE from good Lauranian men of good standing and property.

However, Lauranians Love Their Democracy (there is a mention of a Lauranian folk hero who DIED rather than SUBMIT TO A TECHNICAL VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION) so, naturally, there is a rebellion brewing, led by SAVROLA: a brilliant politician, leader of men, orator, speechwriter all-around figure of heroism.

(WINSTON CHURCHILL: Would you like an entire chapter about how Savrola composes his speeches? It's important to have the right amount of alliteration, you know! Oh, listen, here he's talking for AN HOUR about social and political reforms and THE CROWD IS RIVETED!)

Mostly this seems to be a one-man revolution, though Savrola also has a fiery but easily-swayed best friend named MORAT (

genarti, upon encountering him in the narrative, immediately started to wonder if he was going to be stabbed in the bath) and a couple of other revolutionary seconds- and thirds-in-command who really don't do much of anything.

However! Sinister forces are also using Savrola for their own ends, namely: THE COMMUNISTS! Sparkling Communist repartee, As Reported By Winston Churchill:

COMMUNIST A: [Savrola] has no sympathy with the cause. What does he care about a community of goods?
COMMUNIST B: For my part, I have always been more attracted by the idea of a community of wives!

And then they both do the nineteenth-century equivalent of shouting "HEY-O!" and high-fiving. HUR HUR HUR.

Meanwhile, the dictator, who sees the writing on the wall, attempts to manufacture an excuse to shoot Savrola by launching his (the dictator's) Beautiful and Accomplished Wife Lucile at him and pretending to have a jealous fit.

Alas! they fall in love for real --

(Savrola woos Lucile by discoursing to her at length about entropy and the inevitable heat death of the universe; she is so enthralled that she can hardly get a word in edgewise. 'Nailed it!' crows Winston Churchill, lifting a triumphant finger from the keyboard as he writes their inevitable clinch. 'Who knows what women want? WINSTON DOES.')

-- leading the dictator to be shocked, shocked! by this astoundingly implausible turn of events!

Guess what Savrola and Lucile never actually discuss in the entire course of their acquaintance, by the way: POLITICS. (She does come and listen to his speech at one point! She's very moved by his dreamy voice, but nonetheless fails to espouse a single ideal.)

That said, the dictator's other plan to keep his stranglehold on power in Laurania is to stir up nationalist sentiment in his favor by writing sassy memos to Great Britain, everyone loves to hate Great Britain! they're the worst! which ... OK, I laughed.

In the end, the wheel of politics turns on Savrola in the final days of the revolution and he flees with Lucile ... but it's OK, the epilogue tells us he comes back a few years later and is recognized to national acclaim as a true hero of democracy and the country's only fit leader! HUZZAH FOR LAURANIA AND THE LAURANIAN CONSTITUTION.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

osprey_archer

This entire review is delightful and hilarious and NO, I am not surprised AT ALL that Churchill's hero is the biggest self-insert ever to insert, actually it seems entirely possible to me that Churchill never wrote another novel because he decided that he was just *too implausibly awesome* for anyone to buy him as a fictional hero.

I super want to read this book now.

(Also: hello! A friend pointed me over here at your review of The Prince Commands - which I also super want to read because I have to see if it can truly be gayer than The Lost Prince, because can anything be gayer than The Lost Prince? - and I just kind of ended up staying to read all the other reviews.)

From:

skygiants

It's available on Project Gutenberg! Let us ALL be overwhelmed by the overwhelming heroism of ~~Winston Churchill~~ Savrola, a very fictional human whose resemblance to any real humans living or dead is pure coincidence at best.

(Hi! :D CAN anything be gayer than The Lost Prince? I would not have thought it previously, and yet here we are.)

From:

landofnowhere

Just, wow. This is a thing. Wow.

From:

skygiants

The past is full of inexplicable wonders!

From:

landofnowhere

So it is.

*reads first few chapters*

His high and ample forehead might have contained the answer to every question; his determined composure seemed equal to the utmost stroke of Fate.

Savrola, whose business it was to know everything, inquired respecting the project lately mooted by the Lauranian Cavalry of sending a polo team to England to compete in the great annual tournament at Hurlingham.

OK, yeah, that's some Gary Stu. (Also I just searched the document for "polo" and am glad to see that the final paragraph of book includes a report on the polo team's success!)

I suppose the ability to write Gary Stus may have been useful to Churchill, since part of his shtick seems to have been convincing people that he was a Gary Stu...

From:

starlady

Wow. There's a Mitford joke here somewhere.

From:

skygiants

If Nancy Mitford had ever written a fantastical-historical heroic epic, I would absolutely read it.

From:

alasse_irena

Oh god this sounds hilarious! Can it be obtained online?

From:

genarti

IT CAN. It is, in fact, free on Project Gutenberg. :D

From:

skygiants

It may be obtained here for the very low price of putting up with Savrola for a good 345 pages!

From:

genarti

I do appreciate that Lucile, as well as being The Most Beautiful And Gracious And Charming And Witty (though Churchill is not amazing at writing that wit), is also canonically a really great politician's wife! And that that's treated as a skillset! Of course, as you say, she doesn't seem to hold any actual political convictions, just to be really good at the party-hosting and information-gathering and hearts-winning parts of the job.

Churchill seems to be very confused as to how much he admires versus disdains Moret. (It's Moret, not Morat, by the way, but y'know STILL.) HE'S NOBLE HE'S EASILY SWAYED HE'S DEPENDABLE HE'S FOOLISH HE WAS SAVROLA'S TRUEST FRIEND okay man whatever.

My favorite part of the novel remains the very beginning, when it's all 1880s enthusiastic bombast about THIS PROUD ART-LOVING PEOPLE'S CENTURIES-OLD TRADITION OF THE FRANCHISE and THE PEOPLE LIFTING THEIR VOICES ACCORDING TO THEIR ANCIENT CONSTITUTIONAL TRADITIONS and THAT AUSTERE HERO OF THE NATION WHO DIED RATHER THAN SUBMIT TO A TECHNICAL VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION, and basically pure Ruritania with all the monarchy stripped out. It's so earnest! It's so hilarious! Savrola is nowhere to be seen yet!

Also you did not even mention the polo-playing subaltern who was Dashing And Sporty And Endearing but would have been infinitely more endearing had Churchill not made him fire on a crowd of civilians in chapter 1 and then... uh... forgotten about that little detail I guess...?

In conclusion: LOLOLOL. I cannot say this book is good, but I'm definitely glad I read it, and I fully intend to go "HEY DID YOU KNOW--" about this thing at any future opportunity.

From:

helle

Also you did not even mention the polo-playing subaltern who was Dashing And Sporty And Endearing but would have been infinitely more endearing had Churchill not made him fire on a crowd of civilians in chapter 1 and then... uh... forgotten about that little detail I guess...?
Given that a few years later Churchill was v happy to send not only troops but gunboats into Liverpool to menace striking workers, I guess he probably just didn't consider a little thing like firing on crowds something to worry about ... ?

From:

genarti

Given that a few years later Churchill was v happy to send not only troops but gunboats into Liverpool to menace striking workers, I guess he probably just didn't consider a little thing like firing on crowds something to worry about ... ?

POSSIBLY. On the other hand, he does make a huge deal in the beginning about what a horrible bloody event it is, how it shows the President to be the Dictator he's claimed, etc -- it's seen as a major PR gaffe for the government and a big part of what tips this over from unrest to revolution. Buuut having set up a lot of the popular revolution stuff, Churchill does almost immediately forget about most of it in favor of Savrola's self-assured Gary Stu-ness, so maybe he just felt that little things like that would naturally be forgotten in the face of a Great Man's charm...?

From:

skygiants

I missed THE PEOPLE in the rest of the book ... once Savrola entered we pretty much just got THE AUDIENCE, who are significantly less interesting and appealing.

I am sorry that I did not do justice to the polo-playing civilian-slaughtering subaltern; I cordially invite you to rectify the lack by writing your own review. :P You're the one who found the book!

From:

conuly

Your sporking is hilarious. Does the book live up to it?

From:

skygiants

Depends what you mean by 'live up to it!' I do my best to report the truth as I find it. :D

From:

vass

I wonder if Savrola's name comes from Savonarola.

*checks Wikipedia* omg.

"The heroine of the story, Lucile, is believed to have been modelled upon Churchill's mother, Lady Randolph Churchill. Lucile is the wife of the out-of-touch ruler of Laurania, Molara. Lucile abandons Molara for the charms of Savrola, a character more like Churchill himself."

????

"He asked his grandmother, Frances, Duchess of Marlborough, to comment, with particular reference to the character of Lucile. She responded that she felt the book was worthy of publication, particularly since it already had the prospect of a reasonable financial return, but felt the plot might be improved. She was impressed by the descriptions of fighting, but agreed with Churchill's concerns about Lucile, suggesting that the character betrayed his lack of experience of women."

/o\

"Hey Grandmama, I wrote this novel and based my love interest in it on Mama because I don't know any other women but you, her, and Woomany[*]. Can you read it and give me your opinion as her mother in law? Do you think the out of touch dictator was too much like Papa or not enough?"

[* his nurse. The Wikipedia article suggests that the nurse in Savrola is based on her.]

From:

genarti

OH MY GOD.

(The poor nurse in Savrola deserves way more in the way of characterization, opinions, and in fact a name than she gets! She is instead a pure example of altruistic love, as the text tells us old devoted nurses are, and she just sort of flutters around doting on Savrola and taking all opportunities to give him soup and tidy up the house. She's happy to extend the soup-and-cooing functions to Lucile also, and that is all we know about her opinions on anything.)

From:

vass

It sounds like she might have had more sympathy with the cause than any of the other characters. Cooking and cleaning are nice practical skills.

From:

genarti

You would think! Sadly, disinterestedly loving old women don't have political opinions or ask for explanations of things, silly, they just make soup for the men who do things, apparently. (Men who apparently sprang fully-formed from the forehead of Rhetoric, since no parents or other family are ever mentioned.)

If I were interested in writing fic for this canon, though, I might try to read against the text for a version in which the old nurse is masterminding an allied revolutionary group or something.

From:

skygiants

Oh my GOD. The fact that Churchill made his grandmother beta-read his novel and she responded with a sick burn about his love life is absolutely my new favorite historical anecdote.

From:

marginaliana

omg. I love the sparkling communist repartee. There needs to be a portmanteau word for bro-communists, like bro-grammer for techies.

From:

larryhammer

Brocialists?

From:

sovay

Brocialists?

+1.

From:

marginaliana

YES

From:

skygiants

BROCIALISTS

From:

skygiants

Nobody bothered to fill Winston Churchill in on early Marxist feminism!

From:

sovay

(WINSTON CHURCHILL: Would you like an entire chapter about how Savrola composes his speeches? It's important to have the right amount of alliteration, you know! Oh, listen, here he's talking for AN HOUR about social and political reforms and THE CROWD IS RIVETED!)

You realize you have to read at least one of Disraeli's novels now.

From:

larryhammer

From:

skygiants

You're extremely right! Have you read any of them? Where do I even start?

From:

sovay

Have you read any of them? Where do I even start?

I have read none of them myself, although I keep meaning to because they sound gonzo. Vivian Grey (1826) was his debut novel and an example of the early nineteenth-century genre called silver-fork literature, detailing the lives of the wealthy and fashionable for middle-class audiences, sort of billionaire romance-style; it was published anonymously, except everyone found out and the results were sufficiently embarrassing that it comes back in roman à clef form to haunt the protagonist of Contarini Fleming (1832), the most autobiographical of Disraeli's novels and his personal favorite even though financially it fell through a hole in the floor. The Voyage of Captain Popanilla (1828) is a satirical fantasy of South Seas islands skewering various aspects of British politics and economics; I keep meaning to read it specifically to see whether it would cross over with Utopia, Ltd or whether it just sounds like it. The Wondrous Tale of Alroy (1833) is a medieval romance about the historical David Alroy. Venetia (1837) is reputedly Shelley/Byron RPF. Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847) are a sociopolitical trilogy, the third of which spins off into some kind of reconciliatory Jewish-Christian mysticism. There are two or three others; he was in the middle of a novel when he died. tl;dr I know all of this by reputation, I would recommend reading Wikipedia and throwing yourself on the grenade of whichever sounds best or at least most likely to be entertaining. Or asking

larryhammer, since he unlike me seems to know what he's talking about.

Edited Date: 2018-04-20 03:51 am (UTC)

From:

seekingferret

*doesn't raise his hand*

From:

skygiants

I have yet to find any takers for this proposition!

From:

bookblather

there is a mention of a Lauranian folk hero who DIED rather than SUBMIT TO A TECHNICAL VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION

WHAT

...

WHAT

From:

landofnowhere

I glanced at the beginning of the book, and sadly, this is literally all we are told about him!

"Elaborate mosaics on the walls depicted scenes from the national history: [...] the death of Saldanho, that austere patriot, who died rather than submit to a technical violation of the Constitution."

Perhaps it calls for fanfic?

From:

skygiants

TRUE HEROISM

From:

lacewood

WINSTON CHURCHILL WROTE A SELF INSERT RURITANIAN ROMANCE NOVEL. I have no idea what I'm ever going to do with this information but I'M WHOOPING.

From:

skygiants

RIGHT? I don't know if this information has a practical purpose either but AT THE VERY LEAST it is somehow soothing to the spirit just to know.

From:

sandrylene

OMG, I am slain. Both the review and its comments have unfortunately ended my existence, but I went out in a paroxysm of joy and laughter, so that's okay.

I wonder if anyone misguidedly attempts to espouse this as good literature just because of pride in Churchill as a figure? I would love to read someone attempting to defend/recommend this work. :D

From:

skygiants

Winston Churchill, later in life: "I have constantly urged my friends to abstain from reading it."

From:

obopolsk

I need to give this book to multiple members of my family.

From:

aella_irene

A friend of mine recently came out of visiting the war rooms in London and said "And there was a Churchill Museum..." and it was my great joy to cheer her up by telling her about this review.