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Feb. 21st, 2024 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThis cute Cotillion fic kicked off an urge in my heart to reread Cotillion, one of my all-time favorite Georgette Heyer books; the other one one of my all-time favorite Heyers is The Talisman Ring, which I reread towards the end of last year for Yuletide purposes.
Although one of these has lots of enthusiastically dramatic plot and the other has hardly any plot at all, the thing they have both got in common is that they are deeply about the joy of Being in Cahoots. In The Talisman Ring, two charming melodramatic idiots decide that they are going to THWART A VILLAIN by FINDING A LOST HIDDEN TREASURE while HIDING FROM THE COPS and have the good fortune to attract two sensible older people into their orbit who discover that actually being involved in lost hidden treasure shenanigans while hiding from the cops is a really fun time. In Cotillion, two extremely normal and ordinary idiots decide that they are going to fake an engagement in order that one of them can have an excuse to come do London tourism, and discover that by the power of teamwork, supporting each other and believing in themselves they can both operate with two brain cells and triumphantly solve everybody marital problems.
Every time I hit the end of Cotillion I'm like 'well, we have now had four hundred pages in which our lad Freddy consistently and believably evidences powerful disinterest and mild alarm at the concept of Romance capped off by two pages in which Georgette Heyer assures me that he and Kitty have in fact come to long for each other carnally; do I believe her?' and the answer that I come to every time is 'I absolutely do not care! it is a topic of complete indifference to me! what matters is that they are Absolute Best Friends and will without question have a wonderful time being married to each other and I'm extremely happy for them.' This is a fun and refreshing space that I love to be in when a book sells it and Cotillion really nails it.
In addition to thinking about Romance while reading it I also was thinking about class due to some conversations withgenarti about the way it treats its lower-class second leads and how they are allocated to fates that Heyer would never consider acceptable for one of her upper-class heroines: absolutely true. Cannot argue. Heyer would never consign Kitty into marriage with a French lower-class con artist who runs a gambling den no matter how handsome and madly in love he is. On the other hand, marrying a French lower-class con artist heir to a gambling den objectively rules, so who's laughing now? Me, and that nice young kid who gets to elope with her con artist boyfriend across the channel.
Although one of these has lots of enthusiastically dramatic plot and the other has hardly any plot at all, the thing they have both got in common is that they are deeply about the joy of Being in Cahoots. In The Talisman Ring, two charming melodramatic idiots decide that they are going to THWART A VILLAIN by FINDING A LOST HIDDEN TREASURE while HIDING FROM THE COPS and have the good fortune to attract two sensible older people into their orbit who discover that actually being involved in lost hidden treasure shenanigans while hiding from the cops is a really fun time. In Cotillion, two extremely normal and ordinary idiots decide that they are going to fake an engagement in order that one of them can have an excuse to come do London tourism, and discover that by the power of teamwork, supporting each other and believing in themselves they can both operate with two brain cells and triumphantly solve everybody marital problems.
Every time I hit the end of Cotillion I'm like 'well, we have now had four hundred pages in which our lad Freddy consistently and believably evidences powerful disinterest and mild alarm at the concept of Romance capped off by two pages in which Georgette Heyer assures me that he and Kitty have in fact come to long for each other carnally; do I believe her?' and the answer that I come to every time is 'I absolutely do not care! it is a topic of complete indifference to me! what matters is that they are Absolute Best Friends and will without question have a wonderful time being married to each other and I'm extremely happy for them.' This is a fun and refreshing space that I love to be in when a book sells it and Cotillion really nails it.
In addition to thinking about Romance while reading it I also was thinking about class due to some conversations with
genarti about the way it treats its lower-class second leads and how they are allocated to fates that Heyer would never consider acceptable for one of her upper-class heroines: absolutely true. Cannot argue. Heyer would never consign Kitty into marriage with a French lower-class con artist who runs a gambling den no matter how handsome and madly in love he is. On the other hand, marrying a French lower-class con artist heir to a gambling den objectively rules, so who's laughing now? Me, and that nice young kid who gets to elope with her con artist boyfriend across the channel.
