skygiants

schiarire recommended me Letters from a Peruvian Woman, which I was shocked to never have even heard of - it's an eighteenth-century epistolary novel about an Incan princess who is taken as a prisoner of war and ends up in France, mostly so that the authoress can use her to point out how superficial and hypocritical French society is. Of course the book conveniently blames all the actual damage on the Spanish, and, I mean, if you want a nuanced discussion of colonization, this is not going to be it. This is "where can I find an idealized princess to contrast against all the stuff in French culture I don't like right now?" Zilia might as well come from Rivendell for all it matters to Francoise de Graffigny.

That said, the treatment of a South American protagonist in a novel from the 1700s and the commentary on French culture are pretty interesting from a sociological standpoint - and more interesting, from an English-major standpoint, is the emphasis on women's writing and letters as a lifeline to selfhood - but what actually made the book most entertaining to me is the glorious eighteenth-century smackdown of the Nice Guy. (What follows may be spoilers if anyone cares, but it's spoilers that appeared in the introduction of my copy, so whatever.)

( Some Highlights From The 'Courtship' Of Zilia And Deterville )

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH FANDOM: Predictaby, we will act exactly like contemporary fandom and rant and rage about poor woobie Deterville and how he deserved to get the girl! GRAFFIGNY, CHANGE THE ENDING.
FRANCOISE DE GRAFFIGNY: Sorry, guys, this is not a love story, this is a story about everything that is wrong with French culture today and why ladies need to get educated. Also, she just does not love him in that way!